


Variety Pack

by AngelOfDeath10



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Lemon, Shorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-26 23:13:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 42,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21108749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelOfDeath10/pseuds/AngelOfDeath10
Summary: Multi-Saku.  Various lemons and plotlines, but most are essentially PWP.  Pairing is in the chapter title.Complete from the point of view that I'll add to it if I see fit.





	1. Naru/Saku

**Author's Note:**

> So in the dark early days of the Naruto fandom, around the time when ffnet decided that they wouldn't host explicit content, I moved my lemons to adultffnet (because of course one popped up immediately). If you read any of these back then, it was probably on that site under the name Lady Dementia.
> 
> So I'd say these date to 2006-ish? Very ish.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. I am sort of an uncomfortable person and posting this is really outside of my usual ficlife.

“Naruto, I love you.”

The sheet draped around her hips was all that covered her, his sheet, and Sakura lay on her belly with her face cradled in hands supported by elbows in the mattress. Naruto, who had been pulling on his pants, paused. She watched his back straighten and his muscles move under the skin. If there was a way to describe him it would be ‘powerfully built’, and she knew this intimately. The look he turned on her let her know she was about to experience that knowledge again.

The comment hadn’t been off-hand. He knew it as well as she did, but he also hadn’t expected to hear it so soon. Things hadn’t started out that promising for him yesterday morning, and even last night he had had doubts. Now his heart and mind were full of petal pink hair and smiling lips that welcomed him in the way that previously he could only play out as fantasy.

“Sakura. . .” Naruto knelt down next to her, looking into her eyes as she kept perfectly still in her propped up position on the bed. Her arms were shaking, fingers digging into her cheeks, and her eyes were threatening tears. There was no doubting her sincerity, but he had never doubted it to begin with. If only he could let her see how little his feelings had changed from when he had first laid eyes on her years ago. She was still everything he wanted, and now she was in his reach. “I know.” 

The grin spread over his face, the one that functioned just as well as a gesture of defiance in battle, and he couldn’t help but add. “Took you long enough.” He flinched right after the words escaped, anticipating her slap.

The hand that curled around his cheek and stroked his lips with the pad of a thumb caught him off guard. He pushed his cheek into Sakura’s hand and she felt his stubble scrape against her palm. Those eyes of his finally opened and at last she confronted the feelings there with complete calm. _He knew. . ._

It was an insidious feeling. Sakura wished she knew how to pinpoint when her irritation at the golden haired near dropout had become less easily defined and finally transitioned into this feeling that consumed her—frightened her with its intensity. But it had taken literally years, even if it only took a few hours for her to see what the end of it produced.

*  
*  
*

They had become friends without a problem, but that distinction caused her no trouble when she was still in her early teens. Naruto had always been an important figure in her life, even when she didn’t appreciate him, and even now he did things that drove her crazy. It had been years, and still he tried to ask her out every free chance he got. More than a joke, but with all the outward qualities of one, she reacted as she was expected to with an angry word and a punch to his head. These days she had to punch up instead of down. Time changed the appearance of the beast even if not its nature.

“Come on Sakura. . . I know no one else will see those lovey dovey movies you like so much. . .” He walked backwards, hands behind his head. Naruto was confident of his ability to avoid most obstacles, and it was only because Sakura pushed him that he landed on the ground behind first. It would have been easy to catch himself, but this was all part of the game, the way he let his guard down entirely for her. Above him the early autumn sky was clear, and he admired that view until a more delightful one took its place.

“Naruto, you’ve got some nerve.” Looking down at him with her arms crossed over her chest, she watched him give her his fake wounded expression. It would have been convincing if he didn’t start smiling as soon as he began rubbing the spot where she had smacked his chest. Every touch he got from her seemed to be positive in his book. “You know very well the last time I went to a movie with you we saw that action junk you love so much.”

She breezed past him and Naruto scrambled up to get in her path again. “That’s not fair, Sakura, you know that we were with Kiba and Hinata and Shino and there wasn’t any way that you’d get Kiba into one of those sappy flicks. Shino too, for that matter.”

“Doesn’t matter. You told me that we were all going to see a drama, not a worthless waste of money where hunks of meat hack at one another. I don’t need to pay to see that.” Sakura tried not to smile. There was fun in this game for her too, even if she never said so out loud. “I just can’t trust you.”

“Puh-leez, Sakura? I’ll even take you out to dinner first.”

“Cheap ramen and a bad movie? I think I’ll pass. . .”

Their argument continued down the block. Really, she only egged him on because these opportunities had become relatively fewer and far between. Naruto was busy on missions more, having shot through the ranks up to jounin far faster than anyone had expected to except for him. Never had he thought for a second that he would fail, and it was that determination that found him on Sakura’s heels at that moment. As soon as he had a day off, he was at her doorstep with that goofy grin and the dreaded ‘d’ word on his lips. It was ritual, almost, and Sakura thought it was a stupid one. She had said no to a date at least a thousand times. When would he give up?

“What about dinner, a movie, aaaand a mystery gift?” He danced around her to gain her attention as much as keep other people away from her personal space. The casual way in which he had lay claim to her was well known throughout the younger adult set in Konoha. Every boy three villages out knew that there was a certain pink haired kunoichi that you simply did not ask out unless you wanted to risk the wrath of the number one ninja at surprising people. Sakura was vaguely aware of their combined infamy and was slightly put off by it, but also flattered. It did make it difficult to find a date, though. . . not that she had felt like going on any with the men her age. They always seemed to be lacking.

The two bickering friends had emerged onto a main street where people were buying some of the bountiful fall produce out of stalls. This had been the direction of her walk when Naruto had descended upon her. People were haggling and counting out change while others were examining fruit and vegetables for imperfections. There was an invigorating air to the market and a sweet smell of cooking foods from stalls. But Naruto didn’t seem to see any of it in favor of concentrating on the girl he had seemingly always chased after with no success.

Blatant attempts to get and hold Sakura’s attention aside, Naruto was being particularly annoying today for some reason. Every stall Sakura stopped at he found some way to fiddle with things or get himself in trouble as if he were a small child. She had to pay for one damaged piece of produce after another, and she would be eating bruised fruits for days if she didn’t get a handle on him and his limitless energy. The last mission had been a long one and he was excited to see her, she understood, but her patience was limited after the pestering earlier.

“Stop it. It isn’t funny, act like a grown up.” Naruto, who had been trying to make a little Hokage with a kunai out of a potato Sakura had just been forced to purchase, lost some of his jocular qualities.

“I just thought you’d look better with a smile on your face.” He mumbled and wandered off, though not out of ear shot. If Sakura had given it any thought, she would know that Naruto almost never showed this much of his light side to anyone any more. He would not have been taken seriously as a captain and a leader if he were still playing the fool. When Naruto lost about fifty IQ points and a dozen years it was because just being in her presence set him off balance and he reacted accordingly to that confusion. Long ago the Hokage realized that Naruto was many more times effective when Sakura was not on his team. Sakura had yet to recognize all these things and give Naruto the credit he deserved.

The rest of the shopping went off without a hitch, and Sakura could practically ignore her blond shadow. The day was nice, not too warm, and low winds stirred the leaves that were changing color. The cloth bag full of food bumped against her leg. Automatically, she turned to find Naruto, who had wandered off a while ago once she had snapped at him and she saw him talking to a girl. She was young, Sakura noticed with a deeply suspicious frown, but not young enough to keep her breasts from brushing against his arm as she excitedly grasped onto him. To his benefit Naruto looked more flustered than smitten, but he was a healthy young man and he would have to be flattered at the attention. Sakura hurumphed and stomped over with a twisted frown and fires burning in her eyes.

“I’m done shopping.” She tried to get his attention, but the girl was giggling too loud and Naruto had that cocky smile on his face. “I said, I’m done shopping.”

“Who are you?” The flirty girl was obviously uninterested in the answer.

Naruto’s whole being seemed to inflate when he realized Sakura’s presence. “This is my. . .” Then it deflated a little. “. . . friend, Sakura. Sakura this is Rika. . .” The girl seemed to greet this information with a degree of smugness that made Sakura uncomfortable. Sakura ground her teeth a little before speaking up.

“I’m sure she is. Can we go now?”

“Sure. See ya, Rika!” He disengaged his arm skillfully, and spun on his heel to follow Sakura who was already marching off in a slight huff. The girl, who couldn’t believe she had been dismissed so easily, walked off with a sour expression. Sadly for Naruto, Sakura had seen none of this. All she could picture was the slightly embarrassed and pleased way that Naruto had spoken with the girl. That she had no right to be angry at him didn’t seem relevant to her, but the vague sense of betrayal made her unreasonable.

Naruto was whistling behind her, something cheery and slightly off tune. Everything in Sakura twitched, as if he had no right to be happy when she was feeling so miserable. Of course, the thing people having a bad day love best is to spread those feelings around. Her personal rain cloud was big enough for two.

“I can’t believe you.” 

“Hm?” He was all innocence and honest confusion.

“The way you lead women on. How can you ask me out in one breath and go after other girls right after? I thought you had more pride than that.” She was digging into all his sore spots. It was as if she were trying to force some sort of confession from him, a confirmation of his devotion.

The poor boy had no way to deal with the onslaught. “Sakura, I didn’t. . .”

“But you encouraged her.” The venom in her voice surprised them both.

His countenance softened towards her as he held his arms in an open gesture and approached her. “You know that I would rather you. . .”

“When you do that kind of thing, it reminds me that the apple doesn’t fall far from the toad summoning tree.”

“That’s not fair.” He was becoming cross now at being attacked with no chance to defend himself. Naruto was not the sort to allow himself to feel cornered. He crossed his hands over his chest defensively and scowled. “You’re being a real bitch today.”

That was enough to send her teetering over the edge and completely into her foul mood. “Just because I don’t plead for you to jump my bones every time you come around. . .” She dropped her bag on the ground and stabbed an accusatory finger into his chest. “Maybe you should just stop coming around.”

“Maybe I should!” Naruto hated this, he was trying to sustain his anger but even if his voice was a loud bark his face was all dismay.

“Fine by me!” Sakura was making a scene, but she was too far gone to care. “You can keep your childishness and skirtchasing and get the hell out of my life! Maybe I can actually get a date again this way!” Her chest was heaving like a bellows and her eye twitched just a little.

The tall blond shinobi was looking off to the side, face blank. “Is that how you really feel? That I’m just holding you back?”

There was no way she knew how to answer the question. Sometimes, yes, she was angry at him for keeping other men from getting to close to her. However, if she had been truthful with herself she would have seen how she avoided other men in that way with or without Naruto’s help. None of them seemed to live up to something she had been waiting for, and Sakura needed her romantic notions. The girl trying to pick up on Naruto today had fractured those dreams in a way she couldn’t comprehend but certainly was enraged and threatened by.

Naruto’s lips tightened together. “I see.” He forced a smile. “See you round, Sakura.” If she had expected slumped shoulders when he walked away, they were not to be found. It was just as she always suspected and her rejection couldn’t possibly get to him for long. The rational voice in her head told her to stop him, but she crushed it down. Nothing had ever killed Naruto’s spirit, not his lifetime of constant ridicule, being nearly murdered by his best friend, or her almost daily beatings on him. He was impervious, and she envied him his light attachment to the world. 

There was a grim satisfaction in her heart as she picked up her discarded bag and continued home. The darkness in her poisoned thoughts was satisfied by her actions. Yes, he’d get it now, he would understand.

The trouble was. . . did she?

*  
*  
*

It took a while for her to accept that she had really hurt him, cut past that tough outer skin and demolished those fragile feelings he kept for her. At first she thought it had been like any other bad episode she had had with him (and there had been a few), but on his next day off he didn’t come to see her. She didn’t wait very long, but he usually came to find her wherever she was. It was worrying that he hadn’t visited, and that evening she fended off calls from people and all her other errands to wait for him to come or to phone. The next day she didn’t leave the house, and by evening she tried to call him, but all she got was the answering machine with him awkwardly asking people to leave a message. She hung up as soon as it beeped. Maybe he was sick and couldn’t come to the phone. But that didn’t make sense, since he particularly liked it when he was sick and he could be demanding of her to be attentive to his every whim. If it was worse than a cold, then he would hide it rather than let anyone see him be weak. She got herself worked up with worry, but still did nothing.

The third day, the last day before he would leave again for the next mission he had lined up, she paced about her apartment and tried to figure out what had gone wrong. Sakura found herself constructing their last encounter for hours as she waited, evaluating every word, every gesture they had both exchanged. At the end, other than feeling particularly bad for her harsh words, she suddenly realized what the difference had been.

His eyes. Those beautiful, shockingly electric blue eyes of his, they had been dull and guarded. They wore an expression that she had never witnessed on Naruto before, but she had seen them in her own mirror constantly as she had grown up. They held doubt, sadness, and worst of all they held the haunted acceptance of defeat. Naruto had given up on her.

No, she refused. He couldn’t have given up on her. It was not something Naruto Uzumaki knew how to do. When one thought about Naruto, failure was one of the last terms anyone would use, and he had worked hard to be looked at that way. Everyone in the village offered him the acknowledgement he had craved from his earliest days, and only Sakura—the one person he had shown a soft spot towards, the only one who could cut him deeply—was the one who rejected him.

Suddenly, Sakura felt so ill that she almost ran to the bathroom to be sick. It wouldn’t have done her throat any good since she hadn’t eaten in more than a day and the acids would damage her esophagus. How many times, even in the midst of heated battles, had he turned those gentle eyes to her? It was impossible for him to deny his feelings and the love that she had thought was superficial had been sincere. Just because he had worn it on the outside she thought he couldn’t be serious. It was a phase he would grow out of, she had justified, and so it had been easy to deny him at every turn. More than a decade later, he had stayed true and she was the one who was still lying to herself.

Hurting him had been a test for years, as if physical pain would shock him into realizing that she feared the depth and loyalty of his emotions and force him to give up before she got burned. For every declaration of love she had given him a bruise, and it hadn’t shaken his resolve in the least. Weak people responded to emotional problems with physical violence, and Naruto had been a tender spot for her to probe in her own heart. His presence angered Sakura because she was scared of him, of the offer he freely presented to her by just existing.

There had been security in being the one who was sought. But now that he wasn’t there she felt abandoned, shaky with the fear that the damage she had caused was irreparable. It was her turn to give him the benefit of her new insight. He had to know that she cared, that she hadn’t meant the things she said. Sakura would find the strength, finally, to let him know that living without him was something she couldn’t accept. Even she was not sure of what this meant, but he had to understand. She didn’t want to lose him over the misunderstanding that she had purposefully created between them out of years of heated words and abuse, merely culminating in her actions the last time they had been together because of jealousy and insecurity.

Sakura showered, washed the grime off her body as if she could wash away her guilt, and anxiously prepared herself. She picked out the prettiest outfit she owned, the most expensive, and tried to do everything possible to look attractive. Lightly she applied cosmetics, painting her fingers and toes in the same pale pink as her hair. Eyeliner, lipstick, jewelry, matching purse. . . she pulled out all the stops just as she would have for a date with a boy she wanted to impress. The last time she had dated, the last time she had cared to try to catch a boy’s attention, had been before she became a chuunin. Naruto had filled her world so effectively she hadn’t had a need for anyone else.

If he accepted her apology then she would ask him out on a date. Nothing would be open this time of night except the twenty four hour restaurants, and she would gladly buy him cheap ramen if he would let her. The time had come to try and meet Naruto on common ground. She was scared, far more frightened than she expected, and her hand shook as she stowed a kunai in her purse and one more at her thigh just in case. Senbon held up her hair decoratively. When it came down to it, she was a kunoichi, and she tried to steel her resolve and gain back some of the confidence she had possessed as recently as this morning.

Had laying his feelings on the line been this scary for Naruto? Sakura felt her heart sink further into her belly in empathy and regret for the way she had ignored him. Tears tried to appear in her eyes, but she told herself sternly that ninjas didn’t cry. It wasn’t convincing, and hadn’t been even when she was young, but she needed to get angry at herself to keep her emotions from spilling over and locking up her words inside of her.

The way to Naruto’s was one that she knew well. When they spent time together usually they ended up at his place because whenever he went over to hers he would either break something accidentally (out of nervousness at being in her living space) or get things dirty carelessly. It was just better all around that they go to his place, hardly used and mostly bare, but comfortable. Sakura knew Naruto’s apartment better than her own, from the way the fridge made that scary screeching noise until you kicked it to the scrolls and clothes scattered all around his bedroom as if a jounin had exploded. The bathroom ceiling had scary mold that no scrubbing could get rid of, and the living room had shelves that tilted as if they were about to fall, but which never would because Naruto had made them and somehow they were sturdy despite outward appearances. He was not sloppy, just rushed, and his home improvements had been creative if dubious looking. Even the rabbit ears on his TV had been folded by him for the “maximum reception” of two and a half channels and looked more like modern art gone wrong than what they were supposed to.

It made her well ordered rooms, clean and neat, seem sterile and boring in comparison. Hell, her life was sterile and boring most of the time when he wasn’t there to mess things up and rile her into action. Sakura had been perfect for too long, perfectly hardworking, perfectly smart, perfect in attendance, perfectly devoted to her friends. . . but inside she had known that she was all image. Only Naruto had ever been subject to her inner voices and impulses, even if they had been violent ones. He had had one version of the truth of the matter, but at least he had seen some of the real her and had still liked her for it.

With a stomach that ached with emptiness and nerves, Sakura knocked on the door. The lights were out and he might even be asleep already in anticipation for the beginning of his mission tomorrow, but she didn’t care and this time pounded on the door demandingly. A light came on in the window, and she continued to pound as her body twitched in fear response, adrenaline humming in her blood.

“Damn it, I’m coming!” Naruto yelled out. There was a banging noise and he swore again, this time more biliously, and he hopped a little on one foot as he opened the door. “This better be damn importa. . . Sakura?” The rage in his eyes stopped flashing and was replaced by that dreaded dullness. . . and maybe some curiosity when he saw her appearance.

They stood there for seconds in which Sakura could count more heartbeats in her throat than could possibly be healthy. Naruto just gawked at her and scratched his hair, which was sticking out at odd angles as if he had just been sleeping. He must have been, because he would never wear those outlandish boxers with the multi colored shurikens on them in public, nor would he wander around without a shirt. Sakura forced her mind away from his chest and back to her task.

“Can I come in?” She was proud of how strong the statement was even with the butterflies in her stomach trying to violently eject themselves. Naruto stopped leaning one shoulder against the doorway and walked in, but left the door open for Sakura to follow.

He sat down in the old red chair in the living room, arms folded, eyes narrowed, and she stood before him as if in front of a review board. Only this was far more important to her than her conduct and performance on missions. Sakura forced herself not to fiddle with the hem of her blouse and took a deep breath before she began.

“I came here, in the middle of the night, to tell you that. . .” Her pride choked her words, clamped down on her throat. Apologies were always hard for a girl who had rarely had the need for them. She sighed and then tried again. “I mean, as things stand, and concerning my behavior for. . . well. . . always. . .”

Not the best at patience, Naruto gave her a cockeyed look. “Just spit it out. I need to get some sleep.”

“I’m trying to apologize to you, you idiot!” That wasn’t the way she wanted to say it. Habit had forced out what careful preparation and thought couldn’t. But now that it was there. . . “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. I’m sorry.” Her features softened into something hopeful and more than a little fearful.

Naruto looked unimpressed, his lips pressed thin until a yawn forced them apart. “Is that all?” There was no warmth in his voice and Sakura cringed.

“I thought about what I did to you, and I see now that I was scared.” His eyebrows quirked at her words but settled as she stepped towards his chair and continued her explanation. “I don’t want you to think that you aren’t an important person to me.”

“Oh?” He leaned back in the chair, face and body not giving away a bit of the softness that used to be the only thing he had been able show her.

A foot away from him, Sakura stopped. She couldn’t allow herself to get any closer than this with the way her fingers had started to itch for physical closeness to match the sudden emotional bond that she had uncovered in her heart for her long time friend. 

“In fact. . . I think that you’re the most important person to me.” The words were out now. She couldn’t take them back. The feelings she had repressed and hid were laid out for them both to see and instead of it being wonderful and freeing as she had hoped, it simply made her feel like she had to vomit even more than when she initially realized them.

“Oh.” Naruto, never the fastest one even if he was cunning, seemed to have trouble absorbing this. The pinched old man look he sometimes gave when he was thinking hard took over. “How sorry are you then?”

“What?”

“Are you ‘I’ll do anything for you’ sorry? Or are you more ‘It was a huge mistake and I’m mean and terrible—so I’ll do anything for you’ sorry?” 

“What?!” Her tempered flared up reflexively, forgetting to see how the small smile that he offered up came coupled with the reborn sparkle in his eyes that existed only for her.

The sly blond man aggravated her further. “I don’t think your apology is going to do it for me. Come back some other time when you have a better one.”

“Naruto,” Sakura drew out his name at the vowels in a threatening manner. “If you don’t get it, then I’ll very well show you what kind of ‘sorry’ I am!” Her arms reached out to grab him by the face and pull him up while she leaned down and ground their lips together. Ever the opportunist, Naruto stuck his hands in her hair and pulled her in further so that their knees knocked against one another. The clatter her senbon made as they hit the floor shocked Sakura back to her immediate reality where Naruto’s mouth was moving over hers with fervor, his hands massaging her scalp. Her neck hurt to bend at this angle otherwise she couldn’t say the sensation wasn’t everything she’d dreamed of when she thought of kissing the person she loved.

“Hell yeah,” Naruto grinned fit to split his face when they broke for air. “But I’m not sure that apology was good enough either. . .”

Sakura’s eyes were lidded, her lipstick smudged from the enthusiastic kiss she had just taken part in. A cloudy portion of her mind noted that she didn’t want to ask him out on a date. It felt like they had been on one long bad date most of their lives, and it had only been bad thanks to her. Well, it may have taken a few years, but she knew that she was perfectly ready to take things up a notch. . . and quickly.

“What about this then?” Sakura unlocked her knees, opening up her legs so that she could straddle Naruto on the chair. Naruto sat bolt upright as if he had just been shocked, and Sakura noted with a trace a humor that everything seemed to have come to attention. Her skirt rode up on her thighs and Naruto’s hands took advantage of this to rub his palms over her as she angled in for another kiss. The kunai she had hid joined the senbon on the floor in seconds, and the feel of his skin on hers was intoxicating. If the first kiss had been romantic then this one was blatantly sexual with Sakura running her tongue on the inside of his lips to encourage his own exploration of her mouth. Naruto responded with the energy she never would have guessed he had when he sleepily opened the door to her not so long ago. She drew back from him, purposefully breaking contact and he lunged forward a little at the sudden lack of sensation. His pink tongue snatched off moisture from his lips and Sakura wondered if she should stop now or take this any further.

“That was,” he had to pant in between. “Closer.” In typical Naruto style he seemed to think if a little was good then a lot would be even better. It was easy to be swept up in the intensity of his emotions, and Sakura knew that his challenge was one she could no longer resist. It didn’t mean she wasn’t going to go down kicking just a little.

“I got all dressed up so that I could ask you out,” Sakura said in gasps as he began to work his mouth over the column of her exposed neck, and she leaned her head back to give him better access. “I thought that if I looked prettier that I would have more confidence to tell you. . . but really I thought you’d just be more likely to say yes.” Her insecurities were laid open to him now, and she didn’t fear the outcome anymore.

Naruto pulled away at that comment, leaving Sakura’s skin tingling where he had been sucking on her. “Sakura, you could have showed up in nothing at all and my answer would have been the same.” He said it with a snort, and then started to undo the buttons on her blouse. She refrained from pointing out how humorous his comment was in light of what they were doing, but she knew what he meant.

Happily she felt him swell under her as he exposed her to his vision. His touch on top of her bra was almost reverent. This was something he had dreamed, fantasized really, about since he had been old enough to be curious about sex. The experience of being able to touch her, to share himself with her, was special to him and the way he was treating her reflected his respect even if his hormones were driving him to go as fast as possible and claim completely what he had seen as his for more than a decade. She shrugged off the shirt for him, and he fiddled with the bra while not being able to take his eyes off of her breasts. Growing frustrated with his inability to navigate the straps he tilted the cups out from under the soft orbs and watched, entranced, when they sprang free. Sakura laughed at his dazed expression and removed the bra herself.

“What are you looking at?” If she felt inadequate about her body, she didn’t want to say. The less she drew attention to it, the less likely he would be to notice. But she needn’t have cared.

“You’re beautiful.” He told her before wrapping his arms around her and pressing their skin together as he kissed her again. Sakura felt how hard his chest was, how her breasts flattened to accommodate, and sighed happily at the feeling of her nipples scraping over him. 

The hard mound she had straddled in his boxers twitched and Sakura got a thought that made her smile even while their lips were locked together. She pushed Naruto back and he looked at her quizzically. “I know a better way to say I’m sorry.” The terminology had taken on the quality of a game, and they both knew it, but he didn’t quite understand where she was taking it.

Sakura climbed off his lap, and he watched her with bright eyes as she kneeled down in front of him and slipped a hand into his boxers to draw him out to her view. As soon as she touched him his eyes closed and his whole body seemed to flex and tense. Truly, Naruto was a gorgeous man, and with that thought she confronted the obvious manifestation of his desire for her. Lightly, she brushed his skin with her hands to get the feel of him, and he grasped to tops of the legs of the chair in an attempt to restrain his reaction as he also bit his lip. Then, at the warm feel of her enveloping him in her mouth, his eyes were driven open. On some level, he thought he might still be in bed dreaming. There _had_ been dreams like this, but they always ended with him waking up at crucial moments.

Naruto didn’t dare a double take in case he missed a second of the view Sakura offered him. Rich blood flowed over his tongue as he bit into his lip, but he refused to let go and suddenly bleed out all of his feelings and thoughts in a torrent of nonsense. His eyes watered and still he could not blink or look away, and Sakura glanced up to give him a sultry look. She was in the position of power here, and her tongue caressed him, the tip of it outlining his head and forcing Naruto to shudder. The was she slid him as far down as she could manage, only to draw back and then plunge him down a little further was trying his grasp on sanity. He wanted more of her than he was getting.

“S-Sakura. . .” he forced his body to relax before all his muscles cramped at once, but all that accomplished was for his eyes to roll back in his head. This was too much. “You need to. . .” If he was honest with himself he didn’t want her to stop. Yet, the hesitation in his voice, so different from his usual confidence, were enough to make her cease her activities.

“Naruto?”

“This isn’t enough.”

Her eyebrows drew together in strong displeasure. “I’m sorry if my apology isn’t as skilled as. . .”

“No, that’s not it.” Naruto snagged a finger into the hem of her skirt. He seemed almost bashful about his words in a way that he was not bashful at his body in this moment. The ground was where he directed his confession. “Stay here tonight. I want you to stay here tonight.”

There was a time in her life, anytime before about five or six hours ago, when she would have laughed off the invitation. To her, it would have been the grasping attempt of a lonely man to further entrap her. Now, this request was just what she was looking for.

“I get the bed.” She relieved his mind with a smile, wiping a thumb over her saliva slick bottom lip.

“Me too.” Naruto returned the smile with interest and jumped up out of the chair. He picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, which she found painful, but since the wind had been knocked out of her by the surprise action she couldn’t so much except cough.

In a flurry of floorboards past her vision, Sakura was thrown onto the bed with a minimum of grace. Naruto, naked, gracefully flopped down beside her. She laughed and hid her face out of a sense of disbelief that this was actually happening, but his slightly leering but definitely excited face greeted her at every peek through her fingers. He was busily divesting her of the last of her clothing. Naruto tickled and nuzzled every inch of her exposed skin, making her crawl at the discomfort of being examined so closely. The squeals she gave egged him on and soon he was just tickling her. It wasn’t a fight she was trying to win, and Sakura gave herself over to the twitching of her body in laughter.

When they both calmed down, the mood was congenial and less sexual, but it charged immediately when they both noticed his placement between her open thighs. Naruto’s playful expression halted, became heated again, and he kissed her on the stomach when he was unsure of how to proceed. Knowing better them him how her interior was shaped to receive him, Sakura grabbed him herself and guided the head of the shaft in. They pushed together clumsily, but the blush on their cheeks changed to the flush of pleasure as the movement picked up its pace. 

The experience was beginning to build to a resolution for Sakura when Naruto shuddered above her and grasped onto her body so hard he probably left a few bruises behind for later. She tried to hide her disappointment, but she wasn’t surprised considering her prepping of him before and the fact that this was. . .

Was it?

“Is this. . . your first time Naruto?” He had gone still, his hair brushing her cheek. It was soft, fine, and she wanted to run her hands through it so she did just that.

The wild eyes he turned her way were filled with humor and his voice shook as he replied. “. . . but not the last.” True enough, he was hardening again within her. Number one at surprising people, yes, but Naruto also held the largest reserves of stamina in the village. This new development was no surprise.

They continued, their pace slower this time, and they changed positions. They spoke to one another in hushed tones, sometimes encouragements but more often blatant expressions of pleasure. Sometimes it seemed like Naruto was everywhere, touching, tasting, but then she was doing the same, all the while savoring the feel of him inside of her. Sakura built finally to her climax before Naruto’s third release. They were sitting up, as they had been in the chair, and something about the angle of it created a rush of tension that unwound before she could summon any will to prolong it.

Drops of sweat flew off of her hair as Sakura tossed her head back with Naruto’s name on her lips. She shuddered around him and while she strained he found his own release once more. Sakura slumped forward onto him and fit her chin over his shoulder. Still connected at the waist, Sakura wished that this feeling of content, of completion, could last.

“I love you Sakura. You’re it for me.” Naruto said it softly, but he didn’t need to be forceful to grasp right into Sakura’s center and shake her foundations. Her heart beat erratically and she tried to force her throat to open and create a response. To distract him from the emotional import of his words he followed this with a joke. “Even in sex you had to make me wait for you.”

That was enough to allow Sakura to gain her footing. She knew how to react to this kind of challenge. “It’s not my fault you can’t do anything right the first time.” The bite to her words was dulled by the way she was planting kisses against his shoulder and neck.

“A little quantity can make up for the lack of quality.” He laughed. Naruto stroked her back and pulled them to lie on their sides, separating their intimate connection. Then, in a sulky voice he eventually added, “But I always do the best when I get a little practice.”

“We can practice all you want later. . .”

Naruto leaned over her, face bright and hopeful. “Promise?”

Sakura just laughed and brought his perky face in for a kiss.

*  
*  
*

“Took you long enough.”

She thought about telling him off, forcing some of the blame on him too, but the anger that tried to surface died again just as quickly. Things were different, and she didn’t need anger as a defense mechanism to keep her away from this man anymore. Instead of the slap, she traced his lips and tried not let herself panic at the way she had opened up herself to him.

“I suppose I owe you an ‘apology’ for that too.”

Naruto caught the drift of her thoughts and grinned fit to split his face. “Oh, of course, but remember you owe me apologies for every undeserved punch, for all the digs at my ego, for all the times you treated me like dirt when we were little. Why that one day at the academy a couple days before exams. . .”

“I get the idea! At this rate I’ll be apologizing for years!”

“You’ll be apologizing forever, the way I calculate it.”

Sakura sighed. “You were always bad at math though. . . the worst.”

“That’s not very fair of you. Maybe I should make you apologize. . .” The sight of a tawny, handsome, and hungry male in the morning made Sakura squeal internally in glee, but even if he was willing to throw everything to the side to glory in their new bond she had to insert some reality into this picture.

“You’re going to be late for your mission start time!”

The lust filled gaze, turning his eyes dark blue, became crystal with panic as he began to throw on clothes and grab scrolls. Sakura watched from the bed with amusement. He stopped only long enough to give her a lingering kiss before running out the door to meet his team. The words he had left with her were slightly scary, but also hopeful for a girl whose doubts had ruled her for too long.

She flopped on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “. . . ‘I expect to find you just where I left you when I get back. We’re not done yet.’” 

It was going to be a long week without him.


	2. GaaSaku

Fondly, Sakura remembered when she had been a child and how she used to run about in the rain naked in the summer. It had been so free then, so clean and refreshing, but it was an action that seemed to firmly belong in the realm of childhood. Now, she was for all intents an adult and running about naked in the rain held complications that she didn’t want to bother with. What if someone saw? Odds were against it. Even if she wanted to, it wasn’t practical. She would just get slapped by a branch or something.

As she picked her way through the forest, fat raindrops falling on her head and running down through her hair, she wished that she could be a kid again. Sakura hated the way her wet clothing was chafing against her skin, rubbing against the gritty dirt that had caked her skin from the previous day’s walk. It was summer, so the sudden heavy rain was warm but it didn’t make her feel any better to know that she wasn’t about to catch a cold when she was uncomfortable in so many other ways.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time to get away and try a camping trip, just a short one, to get away from her life in Konoha. It wasn’t as if she didn’t love her friends and family, but things had become irritating as a whole recently and she was having a heck of a time containing all the rage that boiled just below the surface of her mind. She wanted adventure, maybe even a little danger, and she wasn’t experiencing either in her day to day work. Tsunade suggested that Sakura might want to take a couple days off when she practically started screaming in the hospital during one of her shifts. It had been a while since Sakura had done any field work, Tsunade had said, and she should take some time to get used to roughing it before she was sent out on a mission with a team. Translation: get out of here before you upset our patients. Naruto had been really excited when he heard, since Sakura was almost always assigned to his team when she was available for missions, and he told her to hurry back from her vacation.

But could there have been worse weather?

The crack of lightening over head told her that, yes, there could, and that she shouldn’t ask questions unless she wanted to know the answers. Sakura swore and picked up her pace. She didn’t want to be out in the open or even near a bunch of tall trees and she used to know the lay of the land well enough to guess where a convenient rock formation might be for some shelter from the rain and possible electrocution. It had been far too long since she had been in this portion of the forest, and Sakura spent more time looking around in the thick sheets of rain then she suspected. By the time she did find a likely place to stay dry and safe, she was soaked through and far more on edge than when she had left Konoha yesterday afternoon.

She thought about starting a fire, but it wouldn’t accomplish much and just attract a lot of attention from anyone who might be around in the forest. There were still enough dangerous things in the forests that Sakura didn’t want to take any chances if she didn’t have to. It was warm enough, really, so maybe she could dry off if she just stripped down. She pulled off the jumper that covered her mesh shirt and then her sandals as well. A sigh of relief followed as she took off the mesh shirt, leaving her just in her bra and shorts. It would be nice to take everything off, but there were lingering feelings of shame for being naked in a public place, even the woods, and instead she busied herself with laying out her clothes to let them dry. 

Once that was done, Sakura dug into her pack for something to eat. Dried fruit hit the spot, and she swallowed it down with a long draw from her canteen. She sighed, knowing it would be a shame to waste good drinking water cleaning up her skin which was messy from the shifting clothing and dirt. To waste time she began to hum songs to herself, but singing in low tones didn’t help the sudden feeling of isolation. Camping alone had seemed like a great option, but now she was getting lonely. Unreasonably, this made her angry, and with no one around she felt perfectly willing to take out her anger on the surroundings.

“What the hell! I mean, why do I have to take test after test when I can do all the healing jutsus just fine? Tsunade even said that I was as good as she was at my age, if not a little better. And boy did it gall her to say it. Ha! I know I’m good at being a medic, why is everyone still treating me like I’m the weak one? There are different kinds of strength!” Her words were swallowed by the rain, muffled. That didn’t stop her, as she stood beneath the edge of the outcropping. “You hear me world? I’m tired of being treated like a burden! Why did this have to happen to me?” She punched the air and gave a defiant yell.

That felt much better. Sometimes a person just had to let go. Sakura placed her hands on her hips and gave a satisfied smile to the outside world as thunder rolled about at regular intervals.

“You make more noise than the storm.” The voice projected from the dark inner portion of the outcropping.

With more than a little surprise, and even some fear, Sakura pulled out a kunai from the pouch at her leg and faced inside. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

There was a creaking sound and then some scraping and slowly into the low light stepped a boy who Sakura never thought she would see again let alone be stuck in an enclosed space with. He was taller now, with same red brown hair, but if she had any doubts about who he could be they were dispelled by the distinctive dark circles around his eyes and the gourd at his back. And no one else had the nerve to tattoo such a kanji on their forehead.

“Gaara. . .” Her hand tightened instinctively over the kunai even as her brain acknowledged that anything she could try to do to him would be useless.

His eyes were slightly narrowed as they took in her tensed form. “Do you plan to fight me?” Sakura hadn’t found her words yet so she just shook her head. “Then put that away and sit down.” Gaara’s offhanded order galled her, but Sakura still obeyed.

Gaara placed his gourd on the ground and then sat, staring off into the distance and saying nothing. For a few minutes Sakura accepted this silent treatment, but being in his company was stressful beyond imagining for her and she felt compelled to say something to ease the tension. It didn’t look like he was making trouble or acting crazy, but Sakura knew all too well what he was capable of and how close to death she might be just by being here. Oddly, nervousness won out over silent self preservation as she tried to make conversation.

“What brings you out this way?”

All Gaara did was turn his head her way, studying her for a moment and then back to regarding the stormy weather with whatever interest he possessed once more.

“I’m on a short camping trip myself. I never expected it would rain this much. Do you like the rain?” She felt like she was babbling, and she probably was, but it felt more secure to fill the silence.

With a long suffering sigh, Gaara seemed to give in to these attempts and actually responded this time. “No. I don’t like the rain.”

“Can you still use your sand when it’s—”

“Yes.” He interrupted.

“Then why don’t you like the—”

“I just don’t.” This time there was a sharp tone to his reply, as if he found her questions trying. They paused, both of them, with Gaara staring at her and Sakura now being the one to look away. She itched her arm absently, then stilled as a feeling of horror overtook her. How could she forget that she was practically naked right now? Could a person die of embarrassment? Furtively, she attempted to cross her arms over her chest as if she wasn’t extremely conscious of her state of undress. By the time she had enough nerve to look Gaara in the eyes, he was obviously trying to hide a smirk.

He thought this was funny? Maybe it was, but right now Sakura didn’t find it so. What if he was laughing at her body? She knew she was not the most curvaceous of women, but she also knew she was attractive. Fear couldn’t survive with stinging pride covering it up. Sakura forced herself to uncross her arms and try to stifle the blush that turned her face a darker pink than her hair.

“Does the Hokage know that you’re here?” It was amazing the things she found herself doing and saying when her anger was awakened.

“I go where I please.” His eyes had widened, making him look less threatening even if his words were still aggressively intonated. Around them the winds picked up and Sakura tried to keep her hair from flying into her face any more than necessary. Things hadn’t gone very well today, and she was fed up with sustaining the energy it took be emotional about it all.

Sakura sighed at his last comment, some of her anger dissipating as she turned wistful. “That sounds lovely. I wish I could do that sometimes. Having no responsibilities, no authority to answer to all the time. . .” To a girl who was under as much pressure as she was to serve other people, Sakura had some very romantic notions of what freedom would be like. That it might be one miserable extended camping trip didn’t seem to interrupt her dreams.

The shift in her mood left Gaara off balance. He drew his eyebrows together at the girl in front of him and asked a question of his own. “Are you. . . simple?”

“What?” Sakura was honestly confused.

“You should be afraid of me, and you were. But I get the sense that you aren’t now. It’s not a very smart deduction. I could kill you at any time.”

She thought about this, about the boy in front of her with his placid appearance and homicidal tendencies. “Of course I’m afraid, but it doesn’t do any good to stay afraid. If I’m going to die, then I’m going to die. You don’t seem like you’re going to kill me any time soon. You aren’t, are you?” There was a nervous tremor in her last sentence that put Gaara back on familiar ground.

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“That’s reassuring, I suppose.” Sakura cleared her throat and scooted over to her canteen to have some more water. Her throat felt dry, as if Gaara’s very presence was enough to suck the water out of the humid air around them. She got her blanket out of her pack and spread it on the ground before she leaned against a rock and forced her body to relax itself. About six feet away, Gaara’s back was turned to her, and she was glad that she didn’t feel the urge to speak to him like before.

What she had told him was true enough. It seemed as if most of Sakura’s experiences early on had been dominated by her fear: the fear of bodily harm, the fear of losing teammates and friends, and the fear of being an unwanted burden to others. She had been paralyzed by these fears, unable to act effectively to save her companions in battle or to gain any real lasting self respect. The day she had sliced off her hair in the Forest of Death was the day she began to mark a change in herself. Still she had been bound by her strong love for her friends, but it was her first time in the field as a medic nin that she realized the best way to express her love was not to worry about them but to take action. No one else should be expected to save them when she could do it.

Caring for her comrades and conquering her fear made her a great medic, even if she was only a passable ninja in other ways. She had been unconsciously tracing past scars on her arms, remembering how many times she had been covered in other people’s blood when she looked up to find Gaara staring at her with an unwavering green gaze. Had he been thinking of the same thing, of the blood of others splattering him in battle? It was different when it was the blood of your enemies, Sakura thought. Their eyes held as he continued to stare at her unapologetically. It was she who looked away, and he snorted out a laugh when she did.

“The rain has stopped.” 

With some surprise, Sakura found that he was correct. How long had she been reliving battles in her mind’s eye? Time had escaped her. If he was calling it to her attention, she supposes that he wanted her to get going. The sun had appeared in the early afternoon sky, peeking out from dark clouds, and the warm day was fast becoming hot. She hoped it would help the humidity, since as it was she was sweltering even in her skimpy outfit. Sakura packed her things efficiently and then said a polite farewell to Gaara who barely seemed to notice her.

Oh well, on with her trip. Now she had a most interesting story to tell her friends when she got back. She could even dramatize it. . . Dangerous Sabaku no Gaara had been lying in wait for unsuspecting travelers, and when he had beheld her beauty he could not help but spare her life. . . she chuckled to herself. No, even she could not see herself telling that to anyone. He had barely given her a second glance let alone a leer.

Out of his immediate presence, Sakura reflected on how Gaara seemed different somehow than when they had been younger. His eyes were still just the same, and those loosely wrapped robes, but he had aged very nicely and the brooding look had always appealed to her. At this point Sakura laughed outright. It was no good to think about how attractive he was. As if anyone could get close enough to him to act on their impulses. Then again. . .

Her mind began to wander over logistics mostly dispassionately. How would a girl get close to Gaara? His sand might protect him, but that depended on how much control he had over it. From what she understood, the sand shield was an automatic response to danger. If it was connected to his brain’s reactions, then it could be directly linked to his fight or flight reflexes. Included in that set were the ones for the other two f’s, fright and. . . sexual reproduction. 

Then again, if the sand shield was willfully controlled then that meant if he lost control a bad a situation could occur. As soon as he experienced a moment of fright or pain in sex then the girl could find herself in the middle of a forced sand funeral and that would be scarring enough for Gaara let along the girl if she survived. 

Sakura shook her head as if to clear from it any thoughts of Gaara and sex and all of the possible ways it could go wrong. Her reality did not include having to deal with any of that, it had to do with getting somewhere that would allow her and her clothes to get clean and dry. Each puddle along the forest floor taunted her with their crystalline surfaces. The heat of the day was reasserting itself in conjunction with the humidity and Sakura dug in her pack to find her canteen with no success in finding it. If she had left it behind, then she might be in trouble of slight dehydration, but that was better than encountering Gaara again.

With great luck she did come across a small stream. All it took to find was a quick climb up a tall tree and she was in business. The sap that coated her hands would take some time to scrub off, but this was all part of the discomfort of being a ninja and she had been away from missions far too long if something this transitory caused her tangible discomfort.

The stream reached up to mid thigh at the deepest point and Sakura gleefully waded into its fast moving waters. It looked a little muddy from the hard rains that had flooded it, but whatever grime was getting on her was particulate and easily forgotten compared to the dirt that practically caked her body and literally caked her sandals. This time she looked around the perimeter carefully to make sure no one was around. Specifically she chose a bend in the stream so that the water was slightly calmer and the area more enclosed by brush and trees which settled closer to these areas rich in deposited sediment.

Only then, when she finally felt safe, did she finish stripping and scrub her clothes followed by her body. The water was cold and she tried to move quickly to save herself from experiencing any more of this frigid bath. There was also the possibility of sunburn. It seemed unfair to her that Ino, with her fair skin so much like Sakura’s, would tan evenly while Sakura herself would burn the color of cooked lobster. Yet another one of those facts of life that she had to accept, but matters of physical appearance were still touchy for her. Maybe this is part of why Gaara’s ignoring of her had been so galling. Sakura rubbed soap in her hair and ducked into the water with her whole body before surfacing with a yelp and shaking her hair about to rid it of the excess liquid.

“Was that really necessary?” The voice, flat and low, was right behind her. Sakura turned around, eyes wide, to find Gaara standing not but a few feet away and dripping from her vigorous expulsion of water from her hair.

This was too much. She felt a vein in her forehead twitch and she tried not to blow up, but her anger hit critical mass before she could get a handle on it. “WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? ARE YOU SOME SORT OF PERVERT?” It was the second time today, after all, and this incident was much more extreme than the first.

Gaara seemed to be unaltered by her nudity or by her anger. All he did was offer up the canteen that she had left behind by way of explanation.

If there had been justice in the world, Sakura would have had a flurry of freezing winds cycling behind her, but as it was she just dripped and looked furious, goosebumps standing up on her flesh in the wind. “Couldn’t you have waited until I was done?”

For a flash, she thought she saw a spark in his eyes, but it might have been a trick of the light. “I could have.”

“Just put it by the rest of my belongings and leave me alone.” His statement troubled her and she turned from his gaze, wrapping her arms around her shivering body. The cheerily lit up woods didn’t reflect her troubled inner consciousness. When she got up the nerve to peek over her shoulder Gaara was gone and she let out the breath she didn’t know she had been holding.

Weirdo.

A weirdo who had seen her naked. Damn it all.

Sakura set to work on setting up camp for the evening since she was so near to running water and upstream she found a nice clearing. The clouds had not cleared from the sky or from her thoughts, and she tried not to let the menacing feeling get the better of her. It wasn’t as if Gaara had been stalking her. The first incident had been chance, and the second incident had been accident. Sakura had assumed it was accident, but Gaara’s last comment troubled her.

Had he done that because he wanted to see her naked? No, if that’s all he wanted then he could have just watched her and then given her the canteen later. What seemed to be the only logical option was that he wanted to see her naked and he also wanted her to know that he had. What a twisted bastard. Her teeth gnashed their way through a loaf of bread while she worked out her resentment.

Perhaps the most upsetting thing of all about this mess was that he had seen her nearly naked and then completely naked and had been entirely unaffected. Weren’t her “womanly virtues” enough? Sure, when the female ninjas had been instructed in special classes on the art of seduction she had been the butt of a few jokes, but flirting was about confidence and mind games and Sakura had gotten better at it over the years. No more of that blatantly asking men out on dates business. Sakura could control her own sexual destiny!

Fiery bust of temper aside, she suddenly noted how mild depression set it. An option was that she was so unattractive that even being naked wasn’t enough to. . . Gaara must not like women. The stubborn streak in her wouldn’t admit defeat. That thought brought comfort and some humor to her. The humor outweighed the comfort and she chuckled evilly to herself, eventually laughing so hard she was on her back on the ground and wiping tears from the corner of her eyes. The unnatural quiet that gripped the surroundings went unnoticed in light of her loud merrymaking, and too late she realized she was not alone.

“What is it? Are you stalking me now?” If his presence had first inspired her with terror, now he had become an object of ridicule and more than a little curiosity. That she had landed on her mental feet despite another surprise appearance seemed to please him. His mouth quirked as if it was trying to smile, but failed.

“Look, I think the least you could do is—”

“Not going to strip this time?” His mouth quirked harder this time, and Sakura wondered if his muscle was spasming.

Her refuge was sarcasm. “The next show isn’t until ten, I hope you’re feeling patient.”

Gaara looked unruffled by her cold reception. “You’re very weak. You didn’t see me until it would have been too late each time.” He took off his gourd, and she noted it as an indication that he wasn’t leaving any time soon. “Why would your village let someone like you go into the woods alone?”

“You don’t know how to make very polite small talk, do you?” He didn’t respond to her question so she gave in to her temper and answered him in the most saccharine tones she could manage. “I am one of the finest medic nins in the village. I can take care of myself for a mere three days when I’m hardly fifteen miles away from the village if something does happen.”

“Your confidence seems to be unwarranted. This forest is dangerous too.”

It felt like she was being lectured and it had been a long time since she found the sensation novel. “The way to navigate dangers is to understand them. This forest isn’t threatening to me.” There seemed to be an unspoken part of their conversation that she didn’t dare vocalize. It gave her chills despite the heat.

Lazily, Gaara shifted the ground beneath him, flattening it and the surrounding area of all its bumps. Sakura felt the ground move under her feet and tried not to let alarm show through. This localized earthquake was another scare tactic. He just wanted to get a rise out of her. “But I was in the forest, too. What about the threat I impose?”

“I don’t know why you feel the need to bully me, but I’m not playing your game.” The ground stilled again and she silently said a word of thanks to whatever deity had let her pull off that show of confidence. “Are you staying, or going?”

“Do you want me here?”

“No. Not really.” Unflinchingly honest, born of desperation and a hope that he would just walk away if she made her dislike clear.

“Then I’m staying.”

Sakura wished she could scream at him like she would if Naruto had been sitting there being stubborn and persistently annoying. At some point she had become a sort of diversion for the sand psycho. Even if she wanted him to go, she could not make him do anything.

“Then could you make yourself useful and get some dinner for us, and I’ll cook it. With you here I suppose I don’t need to worry about a cooking fire. No one would dare approach where you were.”

“Except you. . .” Gaara said softly.

“What’s that?” He didn’t repeat it; he just looked at her with that twitch surfacing on his face. “Fine. Just go catch some food. . . and please try not to crush it beyond recognition. I’m not eating rabbit puree for dinner.” It seemed like he was going to resist her casual orders, but eventually he faded back into the forest, gourd in tow, and Sakura sighed her relief. Gaara didn’t seem to be completely unreasonable, simply contrary, and she could deal with that kind of personality.

*  
*  
*

Gaara walked away from the girl as she wished, but he didn’t go far. Catching food would be easy and he preferred to stalk other prey. Her body lost its tension once he left, slumping forward as she collected herself together. A part of him wished he had asked her for her name, but he only cared for the names of his enemies and he had no slot to fit into his mind for this girl in any established classification. She looked familiar, her pink hair distinctive, and he tried to place her within the context of Konoha. Nothing came to mind and he shrugged it off.

The girl was talking to herself again, arguing about something, her lips sometimes moving. There was nothing she did that was interesting or useful to him, but he found himself wanting to memorize her movements and burn her image into his brain. Already several images of her were irreversibly etched into his brain: the girl stretching out her limber body as she dried off in the shelter of the rock formation, the girl smiling as she spoke to him, the girl’s naked body as she shook her hair about like some water nymph. The last one was the most cloying of all the images and he couldn’t strike it from his mind. He had tried excessively hard to do so, but with no luck. Gaara felt his blood heat in a similar way that it did for battle, and made efforts to ignore it. The intentions he had to continue on his travels had halted and he had doubled back just to talk to her.

She was gathering wood now, getting a fire ready for when he came back with game. Even if he was critical of her, he was willing to admit that her movements were lithe and her reactions unusual. Normally, in his presence, if someone managed to say anything it was either a plea to spare their life, or it was tentative requests for him to carry out missions. This girl possessed superior qualities than many grown men, powerful ninjas, who he encountered on a daily basis. She could never know how honored she was that he had spoken to her at all. Even Gaara didn’t understand entirely why he did it.

_The girl needs protection._ His thoughts were concentrated all on her and how aware he was of their comparative strengths. Tonight he would make camp with her, eschewing his normal solitude and waste time taking watch while she slept. The idea alone of doing that for her gave him a tweak in his chest, a strange mild pain unlike when the rare punch landed on him, and he wondered if she felt pain when he was near her as well. Close on the heels of that thought was the musing about what she felt like. That pastel hair seemed too glossy, and her skin looked so pale and translucent unlike the skin of the women who lived in the desert who were subjected to harsh sun most of their lives.

The concept of lust was foreign to him. He had heard Kankuro’s off color jokes about sex and had not found them funny. Temari had tried to explain it once, when they were young when he wanted to know how he had come to be as if it would give him more purpose for living. With blushing cheeks Temari spoke but he had stopped her when he started to get some confusing information about storks and cabbage leaves. They had been very young. Books enlightened him to mechanics when he got a little older, but the elusive part of the equation seemed to be why someone would want to touch another human being. People around him did it all the time, more often then not a protective gesture of defense, but every now and then he saw an unguarded moment when people touched one another willfully. Previously he had not seen the draw, now he felt a pull in his hands and in his gut to get as near as possible to the pink haired kunoichi.

He could get what he wanted; he just needed to look for an opportunity.

*  
*  
*

The sand covered rabbits that Gaara had dropped at the fireside were just as unmarked as she had asked for. She didn’t ask how he had caught them, and just hoped that their little rabbit lives had been good ones until they became dinner for the two of them. Even if she had to fight against the strong winds to cook them, she managed in the end to get them charred into a mostly edible state. Gaara had no complaints when he bit into the food, even if both of them grimaced at the taste. Neither person spoke, but once they had finished eating and darkness had set in Gaara seemed to grow restless. Sakura’s whole persona perked up, hoping that her silent treatment was enough to prove she was boring enough to be left alone.

“What’s your name?” When the question came, suddenly, almost ripped from him, Sakura couldn’t think of any reason to deny him the information.

“Sakura Haruno.” There was no need for her to ask him his name, since Sabaku no Gaara was infamous throughout all the villages hidden or not. She had gasped it when they had first met. For a fleeting second her thought about how he’d like to hear her gasp it again.

In the darkness, embers of the fire gave off a thin stream of smoke and provided the only light in addition to the flashlight that Sakura had finished putting batteries into. She managed not to scream when the beam of light hit upon Gaara just a few feet away and standing with his arms crossed directly in front of her.

“I will keep watch.” Again with the orders. Sakura wished she could protest, but he seemed to be determined to do what he wanted to, and honestly she did feel more secure with him there. It was a bit of a shock to realize that she trusted him enough to keep watch, but when she retreated into her small tent to change and go to sleep she also knew that she didn’t have much choice but to let him do as he pleased. This way she knew where he was, at least.

Well, if he was going to do something nice for her, then she should just be grateful and try to at least pretend to sleep to show good faith. “Thank you, Gaara. Good night.” Then she disappeared into the tent.

It could have ended there easily enough. Gaara had neither experience nor real inclination to create the opportunity he had wanted. Sakura, for her part, was uneasy with his presence but accepting of it and she was creating a mental block against her fear by narrating the whole episode into the past tense even as she lived it. The consolation of making it an interesting story later was providing her a powerful defense. They were two people close together but separated by vast mental straits. . .

Then the storm set in. The winds had settled, but the boiling clouds that had been passing overhead all day again opened up and poured down their liquid upon the baked earth. In addition they hit the increasingly disgruntled form of Gaara. The nearest shelter was miles away, and he couldn’t leave Sakura at any rate. The most practical solution was the one that caused his stomach to clench in an anticipatory fashion, but he didn’t hesitate as he followed through on it. The battle began in the way he expected it to, but he was not at any real disadvantage.

“Get out of my tent!” Sakura, who had not been able to fall asleep in the hour since she and Gaara had parted ways for the night was plenty aware enough when her tent flap opened and she shined the flashlight on clear green eyes.

“It’s raining.” He said as he ignored her order and came in, closing the tent flap behind him. “I told you, Sakura, I don’t like the rain.”

He used her name so easily, so intimately, and she wished she hadn’t told him after all. “Can’t you just bury yourself in the earth or something?”

The flashlight caught his haunted, almost devastated look, and she felt a wave of guilt. Who would want to experience being buried alive? Gaara didn’t say anything but he did shrug off his outer layer of robes which seemed to be soggy. He lay down next to her, and their shoulders touched due to the tight nature of the small tent. “Family” tents fit three people comfortably if they were small people, a two person tent could hold one person and their gear without a problem. Sakura had a single person tent and her entire side was pressed next to Gaara even as her other side was distorting the material of the tent off to one side.

“This is really inappropriate.” She wanted to find an excuse to get him out, but even she realized how weak that particular one was.

“Why? Explain it to me.”

Sakura tried to muster up a good way to start that explanation, but it turned and distorted in her brain. The only reasons she could state were somewhat silly. No one was around for miles, so other people finding them and mistaking the situation was out of the realm of possibility. Needing one of them out there to keep watch wasn’t valid because anything that wasn’t frightened away by the aura of Gaara’s chakra would soon be sensed by the sleepless boy anyway. And citing the possibility of inappropriate actions being taken by either party in the tent was something she didn’t even want crossing his mind. Now that it had crossed hers, sadly, it was starting to sound intriguing. But Gaara didn’t like girls like that, she reassured herself. It was easy to forget how she had made that up to sooth her ego earlier in the day.

“Never mind. Just don’t shift around too much and wake me up, ok?” The flashlight clicked off and they were enveloped in velvety darkness. The rain hit the tent, covering up the sound of her breathing. If it were not for the pressure and warmth against her side, she could have forgotten her was there. It was for situations like these she had trained for, she reminded herself, and she concentrated on controlling her breathing and showing a convincing outward appearance of sleep. Meditation was part of some the relaxation techniques she sometimes showed to recovering patients, and tonight she was glad for the control she could exert over her rapidly beating heart and pumping lungs.

Once he thought she had fallen asleep, Gaara let out a deep breath he had been holding in. He didn’t want to shift around, but his arm was uncomfortably placed and it was starting to go numb. Carefully, with the finesse that ninjas were notable for, he worked his arm under the back crook of Sakura’s neck and turned himself to the side. Now he need not touch the side of the tent that felt cold and slick like the water he wished to avoid. In this situation, with the rain enclosing them, he cherished the human closeness that he had wanted from the beginning when he had laid eyes on Sakura.

Bodies were warmer than he had suspected, if she was typical, and already the inside of his elbow was sweating from the contact with her skin. Feather light, he touched her hair and her face. Stopping as she grimaced, but then beginning again once she seemed to compose her features.

His own body was heating abnormally at this exploration and he could have sworn her breathing had sped up. When she spoke, he didn’t stop his explorations mainly because he was curious as to how she would react. Smothered by darkness, Sakura found that the voice she tried to make strong was just a whisper.

“What are you doing, Gaara?”

There was a moment when he thought he should just get up now and leave, rain be damned. Yet another possible scenario involved killing her then walking away, but the constriction in his chest became unbearably tight at the thought of her death. Killing her was not an option. Maybe words would help. He didn’t enjoy the way she sounded so far away.

“I like the way you feel.”

“Do you know what this means?” Her voice caught as his fingers dipped into the hollow of her throat and skimmed back out. “Do you know that what you’re doing isn’t right?”

“It feels good, so why should I stop?” he wanted to be closer to her, so he rolled his body onto hers, resting himself in between her legs. “Does it hurt you, what I’m doing?”

Sakura didn’t know if he was innocent, truly unschooled in what it meant to touch another person particularly a girl, or if this was just another part of his manipulations. “No, it doesn’t.”

“Then I don’t think I’ll stop.” She felt so nice, silken and pliant, that he began to wonder how she would taste. Gaara felt his mouth draw down to her neck and he ran his tongue over her collarbone. 

“What if I ask you stop? What if I ask you to leave?” The gasps that punctuated her questions were driving his blood to a boil.

Gaara was only half listening to the actual words, lost in the wonder of her body and his own overwhelming response. “Do you know how much you’ve taken over my mind? I didn’t think I’d ever want to get near another human being, but I can’t keep myself away from you.”

The evidence of his desire was resting between her legs, outlined by their clothing and the blanket but still firm and unforgettable. Sakura felt how her body was responding to him, wishing she could say that she rejected him at that basic level, but he was being so attentive and her body clamored for more. Before she could moan aloud she bit her lip and tasted blood.

He had been in the process of pushing down the top of her shirt to lick skin closer to the breasts that he had become so interested in seeing, but the distinctive smell of blood caught him and held him. The instincts that had been driving him in this need became even blinder and he clenched the flesh of her sides painfully as he took her lip into his mouth and ran his tongue over the small cut. 

“Gaara,” Sakura gasped as he pulled away from her and came back to himself at the sound of his name on her lips. “Please. . .” They were just inches away from one another and he felt the gust of her panting breaths against his sweating flesh.

If she asked him to stop, he didn’t know if he could. He’d hate himself, he’d hate her, if this happened and she rejected him. The demon inside of him, anticipating the negative response, collected power around him and he tried not to give in to the instant rage.

“. . .please be a little more gentle. My ribs feel like they’re going to crack.” Sakura took his lower lip into her mouth mimicking what he had done to her and ran her soft tongue over it. Gaara forced his hands to release the vise around her middle. The urge to kill had been completely erased and in its place blossomed something more compelling, more pleasurable, and he gave in to it. She didn’t hate him. She didn’t fear him. To Gaara, Sakura was perfect and he would show her how devoted he could be.

If Sakura had had doubts about her decision, they were dispelled when Gaara’s lost the frantic edge that had her alarmed before and he removed his weight from her long enough to extract the blanket and his shirt. If he had enough presence of mind for deliberate action then she felt better about the pace of this. He words had moved her a little in her heart, knowing that she was the first person he had voluntarily touched like this, and all it took was knowing someone took note of you like that to respond to them more favorably. After all, she had been admiring his form before, and there was nothing wrong with something as natural as what they were doing.

A voice in her head tried to scream at her. It was the reasonable one she had sent packing this morning when she had stripped under the rock outcropping and screamed her frustrations to the world. The voice told her that this was a decision that she could regret, that it was tying her intimately to a monster who might do anything to her just as easily as he brought her pleasure. She hadn’t realized that during this inner argument she had gone still under Gaara and he had paused in his removal of her shirt.

“You think too much.” He said, his wisdom in this situation surprising her back into action as she lifted her arms to allow the shirt to slip past. “You need to train your instincts more.”

“And you’re all instinct and no thought.” She started out saying it with a snap but ended in a purr when his hand covered one breast and his mouth the other. If her nails had not been cut down so far for the practicality of working in a hospital and being a ninja then she might have trailed score marks down his back but instead her fingertips ran over skin, trailing rivets behind them. Sakura whimpered when he bit down on her nipple a bit too hard, but he adjusted the pressure and laved the pain away with his tongue.

By now he was breathing heavily as well, and his chest scraped over hers as he sought her mouth again. The planes of muscle, the small hard nipples—she could feel it all against her oversensitive flesh. He was taking over, fending off her hands when they wandered near or below his waist and pushing her tongue back into her mouth with his own when she attempted to invade. It was as if Gaara were trying to make up for a lifetime of not touching another person in just one night. Where his hands trailed his mouth would follow, and her sweat mixed with his saliva in trails over her body.

Soon enough he grew impatient and tugged at her pants. Sakura lifted up her hips to push them down and pressed into his erection suddenly. Gaara made a strangled noise in response and as she wiggled her pants off he proceeded to growl and moan in turns. Even if he stopped her from touching him as she wanted to, she could still exert power over him and Sakura tried not to crow out her smug happiness. 

Naked beneath him, Gaara pictured once again how she had looked in the stream as he could only make out her vague outline in the inky murk of the tent. He saw everything clearly in his mind and followed the outline with his index finger as he traced a bumpy path over her lips, her breast, hitting the small dip of her belly button, until he finally got to explore the spot protected by small curly hairs which was damp to his touch. Sakura writhed under him as he felt a small bump and rubbed it experimentally before he moved on to her inner heat that welcomed his finger into their damps slickly.

Gaara took his finger away and touched the glistening tip of it to his tongue. Not unsettled by her taste he kissed down where his finger had traveled before delving his tongue in past her curls. The bump which seemed to draw the biggest reaction from the beautiful woman beneath him was what he concentrated on until her thrashing about forced him to hold her legs down and apart if he was going to continue. There was a moment when he wondered if he was hurting her, but shortly after his tongue stopped she cried out to him.

“Don’t stop.” His member twitched at her tone. “Please Gaara. . .” And that was all it took as with a smirk he went back to what he was doing. Under his hands her powerful thigh muscles shifted and attempted to clamp onto him but he just held her more strongly and moved his tongue over her faster. When she shook and called out his name he could only assume she had reached whatever end it was that she desired. His needy body demanded the same opportunity.

Sakura couldn’t believe what was happening to her, and as she drifted down from the cloudy place her mind had reached at her climax she felt more confident to seek out Gaara than before. When she took the initiative to pull him back up and tug at his pants, he did not resist and climbed out of the last of his clothing with admirable speed. He sucked at her neck as she positioned him at her entrance and drove her hips up to enclose him in her warmth. The pleasing sensation of fullness only lasted a moment as she moved her hips and he took up the pattern of motion she had started.

When his movements sped up and began to lose control Sakura locked her arms around him and met him with all the force her muscles had energy left for. Gaara hardened then released inside her and she pulsed around him a little in response even if it wasn’t as intense as her first orgasm had been. Sweaty and fulfilled, he dropped down on her and wrapped his arms around her tightly. Their chests pushed against one another until their ragged breathing subsided. Still, he refused to let go or even loosen his hold.

“I’m not going to disappear.” She smiled, knowing he couldn’t see it but doing such a gesture automatically. Sakura’s words seemed to help and Gaara let his arms relax around her but not withdraw.

She felt exhausted. The wind and the rain still pounded the outside of the tent and shadows from the trees created strange moving murals above her past the silhouette of Gaara’s hair and neck. It would be nice to sleep, but that would be impossible like this with his weight robbing her of deep breath. He seemed to anticipate her need and Gaara drew his body away from hers and rolled them to the side, still his arms stuck to her as if glued.

“Good night Gaara.” She knew she could get to sleep now, even like this, and only the brief tightening of his arms let her know that he had heard her.

*  
*  
*

It was a strange sensation, Sakura reflected, to wake up with a blanket half way over one leg and a naked man halfway over the other. His arms were still around her, even though by now at least one of them had to have lost circulation. Gaara, noticing that she was awake, smiled at her.

With a catch in her breath Sakura saw that it wasn’t the smirk he had offered to her the day before but a full smile that showed the upper row of his teeth. It filled her with warmth and she leaned forward to catch his smiling mouth in a kiss.

“Good morning.” What else should she say? Thank you? Is your arm ok? Can we do it again?

The longing in her eyes was not lost on Gaara but neither was the way her stomach loudly growled. If she had had a free hand, Sakura would have slapped herself. Even if she couldn’t help the needs of her body, it was still embarrassing. Gaara pulled on his clothes in the small space afforded to him and climbed out of the tent.

“Breakfast.” Was all he said in parting. Once he was outside, Sakura scrambled around the tent with wide eyes and tried to pull all her clothes on all at once. She stuck a leg through the wrong side before correcting it with a curse. Stumbling out of the front of the tent to splash into the water just outside, she noted that the entire stream had flooded last night and her tent was occupying a raised dais above the inundation. She had tripped down about a foot into the awaiting water. Thanks to Gaara, no doubt, and she thought cheerfully how useful he was even if she didn’t appreciate this kind of wake up call.

Then she realized she still had to wade through water to get anywhere and felt even less cheerful. Sakura sighed and sloshed her way over to the next mostly dry area she could find. Her body felt a little sore in areas she never thought she’d be sore in, and with a wide smile she jumped around inside of her own mind in post-coital glee. She relived the night in flashes and squealed and blushed in turns to herself while she looked for likely pieces of wood to start a fire with. Everything was too damp still.

It didn’t take long before Gaara returned. By then she had finished packing up the tent and he watched from the side of the large puddle as she walked back. He assumed she had had enough time to think. Looking for breakfast had been pointless, just an excuse to leave for a while. There was no game for miles around. Animals learned faster than people to avoid his presence. When she smiled and waved at him, he was immeasurably relieved. 

“So, I think I’m going to go back home today. I’m expected for a mission.” It was mostly the truth. Really, she was tired of sleeping in a tent and being dirty and hungry. More shyly, she added. “Where are you headed to?”

“Nowhere.” His mouth tightened and he was again the stoic and unreachable Gaara she had accidentally shared an outcropping with. The morning sun beat down on them and Sakura shielded her eyes against it as she judged the time of day to be maybe 10 or 11 a.m. “But maybe I’ll stop in Konoha today.” Gaara added the last part and then turned on his heel to head in that direction. Sakura’s running footsteps caught up to him.

The little voice in her head tried to tell her that he was going back to Konoha because that’s where she was going, but Sakura shushed it as bunk. Last night had been great, but it was not life changing, and she should not assume she was truly special to him. If anything, he seemed to be trying to walk faster than she could keep up with. What if he was the one who regretted last night? Some stray she was bringing back. What had she gotten herself into?

Sakura played with her doubts and mixed feelings, but up ahead Gaara’s mind was filled with calculations. 

This kunoichi, his Sakura, was not well trained enough to keep herself out of trouble. Gaara thought that if she was placed on a mission then surely she would just get herself hurt. He could go along and protect her. . . but just because he felt like doing something more pointed than wandering. It wasn’t as if there was any deeper purpose. He shouldn’t tell her what he was planning, because she was perverse enough to protest it. She would misunderstand. Gaara felt how Sakura was lagging behind and he stopped entirely until she caught up. Her hand brushed his in passing as they both started out again, and he didn’t pull away from the sensation.

The Hokage would offer him a place to stay, but Gaara wondered to himself if Sakura would invite him as well. The smirk returned to his face. Maybe he’d just invite himself over anyway.


	3. ShikaSaku

There was just something so sad about the way she had found him in the bar that night. It was understandable that he had gone there, of all places, but he didn’t even seem to be able to get drunk right. The old men there were well ahead of him, knocking down each cup of sake with remarkable tolerance. Shikamaru had preferred to listen to them talk about how much trouble women were rather than work on his own bottle of sake. But then, he had gone through enough of it that he seemed to be on his way to a buzz soon enough. Sakura had stopped in on a whim, but had ended up joining the group of old men and Shikamaru when they had forcibly moved over to include her. She was sure Shikamaru, even drunk, had engineered the relocation. He was good at manipulating people.

And an impulse told her that the fact that she had not seen nor heard from Ino in two weeks had something to do with this display of drunkenness. When Ino’s parents had called her, asking if perhaps Sakura had seen Ino recently she had thought it odd. But maybe they were having a fight and it wasn’t as if Ino lived with her parents anymore. It was none of her business what Ino did with her life. But the last she knew, it was Shikamaru’s business to a certain extent. Though Ino had been pretty cagy about mentioning her boyfriend for a few months now the few times Sakura had run into her.

It didn’t take long to get the story from the old men. Shikamaru himself was inspecting the bottom of his sake bottle with great interest, as if to ignore their voices cracked with age retelling his woe.

“. . . and then she ran off with his best friend! He got the letter today.”

“Married!” Interjected another old man, stroking his bald spot out of what was most likely habit.

A third quavered his addition. “Just goes to show how inconsistent women are.”

Nods and loud exclamations of agreement sounded out before they nervously recalled the pretty girl in front of them and proceeded to say that naturally she was not included in that category of women. Sakura just laughed at the old men, understanding that if she had been in the company of women then they would be putting down men just as harshly. Either sex was always in the dark when it came to relations with one another. But she kept her comments to herself and let them vent. If it made Shikamaru happier then she wasn’t going to stop them. Then again, there was only so much she could take of men whining about the failings of women.

“I think I’m going to retire for the evening, gentlemen.” They protested her exit, saying that she should stay with them and play a game or two of shogi or go while it was early.

It took a few complimentary and shallow promises to return someday to actually get her out of there. Sakura was just starting to mull over the whole idea of Chouji and Ino together when Shikamaru put a hand on her shoulder to stop her progress.

“Didn’t want to spend the rest of the night with your friends?” Sakura made an effort to look happy at him. He had spent most of the evening in the company of grumpy old men.

Shikamaru snorted and a waft of alcohol scented breath nearly knocked Sakura over with its potency. “I had enough of their noise. Besides I had some questions for you.”

This was odd. Shikamaru was not someone who usually spoke to her. When he and Ino had hooked up less than a year ago she had seen more of him because of that connection, but he had never been the kind of person to actively seek out others. Only Chouji seemed to gain such an honor as having Shikamaru’s willing friendship.

“I’ll do my best. What do you want to know?”

“Why?” It was almost plaintive.

Sakura arched an eyebrow. Not truly understanding. “I’m afraid you’ll have to clarify. I’m smart, but I’m no mindreader.”

Shikamaru ran hands over his hair, pulled the top ponytail tighter, then looked into her eyes with his usual grumpy expression. “Why Chouji? Why didn’t it work? What was wrong? You were her friend, she must have told you something.”

Now it was Sakura’s turn to sigh. It was going to be a long night, it seemed, and she might as well scrap those plans of seeing a movie with Naruto. “Those are not easy questions, and I can’t give you simple answers. Plus, it isn’t as if I know everything about Ino. All I can do is guess.”

“Whatever, I don’t care. You’d still know better then I would.” He looked off to the side, not willing to meet her eyes. “Let’s just get somewhere where I can sit until the alcohol wears off. I want to remember clearly what you tell me.”

Sakura followed him as he strode forward, taking them down unfamiliar alleys as he continued to give her information from his point of view about the whole matter.

“She was the one who asked me out at the beginning. I thought, what the hell, you know. I mean, she wasn’t bad looking and I had known her for a while and thought she was a little pushy but nice enough. She and Chouji and I had been together a long time, after all, and I got to like her better when I noticed how much better she began to treat him. We all seemed like a real team for a while.” He looked at a street sign, grimaced and then turned them back they way they came. Apparently, the alcohol was still in effect. At least he seemed to know where they were going if he knew to correct their direction.

Sakura tried to picture what she knew of the other team. Ino had rarely spoken to her of either Chouji or Shikamaru and it had been a surprise to Sakura when Ino had suddenly announced that she was dating the crabby but talented town genius. Shikamaru had always seemed sort of asocial to her, and Sakura had wondered what Ino had wanted out of the match. Ino usually wanted something. Not that she thought her friend was wholly selfish, but definitely self-interested was a word that she thought was applicable.

“So what happened then?” Sakura tried to redirect Shikamaru’s attention, because he had lapsed into silence again.

“Oh, well, Ino and I went out for a while. She seemed to want more presents and attention then I had time for, but other than that it was well enough. It was even companionable after a few months when she finally let go of some of her unreasonable expectations.” This was beginning to make more sense to Sakura.

“Where was Chouji in all this?”

Shikamaru thought a moment, then shook his head. “We all were still seeing as much of one another as we used to, if not more. It was easy to do things as a team, and if Chouji and Ino were talking more, I didn’t notice. I was happy that I could still spend time with my best friend without a woman trying to get in the way.” As always, Shikamaru’s attitude towards women was almost upsettingly indifferent. “Who knows when things between them changed. Obviously, since I’m asking you, I found this result more surprising than anything.”

This was going to take a lot of work to make him understand if he was thinking like this. Sakura wondered if he would even like the answers she had for him. There was advice to go along with the answer, in addition, and that would probably be even less welcome than her answers. It was all very aggravating to have to spend her night off consoling an almost-misogynist she could only call slightly more than an acquaintance.

“Are you mad at them?” Sakura tried to probe his feelings more while he was still under the influence. Something told her he would close up as soon as he had all his faculties again.

Shikamaru seemed to consider this longer than he had to. “Yes and no. I guess you can say I’m upset because I don’t understand it. I don’t like it when I can’t figure people out. Otherwise, I wish them whatever happiness. Not much else I can do, really.”

They stopped at an apartment complex. It looked inexpensive but tidy, and Sakura could only assume that this is where Shikamaru lived. She had never been here before, and the bareness of its façade seemed to scream ‘bachelor’. There was nothing decorative to show people that these living quarters were anything but functional and convenient to their occupants.

“Come on up. I’ll drink some water and you can tell me what you think about all this.”

Sakura felt ill at ease to follow him up, sensing that this was inappropriate to be alone in his apartment even if they were just talking. She bit her lip as she tried to decide whether to make up an excuse and leave or not. Unfortunately, Shikamaru was canny even when he was a little tipsy.

“Think you can give me a little help on the steps? I don’t quite seem sure of myself.” He hadn’t seemed to be weaving about much when they were walking, but now he looked barely able to stand up under his own weight. She was willing to believe that the alcohol he had consumed earlier was only now hitting his system in a way he couldn’t manage. It had happened to her before too.

Being the good Samaritan that she was, Sakura couldn’t help but swallow her fears and continue on up. If things got weird she could always leave later. She pulled Shikamaru’s arm around her shoulder and together they ascended to the second level where he took out a key and they stumbled into the entranceway.

“Sit down or whatever. You want any water too?”

“No thanks.” She said dryly. Shikamaru was not the most gracious of hosts, but then he probably never had any guests.

Everything was oddly tidy. The shelf across from her had a few books and a few pictures. At the bottom was a set of board games, most likely the strategy games he loved so well and played so skillfully, and she thought about challenging him while he was still drunk to see if she could walk a way with a win and terrific bragging rights. Shikamaru was just a rookie jounin at the moment, but he was still known for his genius IQ.

The bareness of the room was aesthetically pleasing, but slightly depressing. Shikamaru had never been flashy or demanding, like Ino, and might never see why she put so much stock in appearance or in the delight of quantity over quality. Chouji knew the glory of gluttony, of paying attention to the needs of the body, and it was with that realization that Sakura wanted to start. She was forming her thoughts, massaging her temple, when Shikamaru strode in and slumped into the chair across from her.

“So talk to me, then.” He said before taking a long drink of water. “Tell me why.”

At first she had thought about breaking the news lightly, but with that attitude she felt much less inclined to. A part of her thought that this might be his posturing to mask any real hurt he felt, but with Shikamaru you might never actually know. He was a closed off person to most of the rest of the world.

“How often did you and Ino have sex?”

Shikamaru sprayed water all over himself so violently that a few drops actually hit Sakura across from him.

“Excuse me?!”

“You heard me.” The pink haired kunoichi looked particularly pleased with herself for surprising him that badly.

With narrowed eyes, Shikamaru studied Sakura’s face for a certain expression, the hint of where this was going. “I don’t see why this has anything to do with why Ino left me.”

“On the contrary Shikamaru, I think it might be very important. Ino was a beautiful passionate woman, and I think that your sex life would be a very telling detail in this conversation.” For good measure she added. “I can’t answer any of your other questions without knowing it.”

He grumped at her then drank some more water, and tried to forget about his soggy clothing. “We did it enough. I mean, when it was convenient and there wasn’t something better to do.”

Sakura rolled her eyes. “There’s the problem. You want to know why she left you for Chouji? Well, it’s simple. Chouji offered everything you didn’t.”

“What was wrong with what I offered? I don’t smoke, I rarely drink, I didn’t cheat on her, and I was completely undemanding of her. . .”

She had been nodding at his words. “And it never occurred to you that maybe she wanted someone who might have had a few demands? Not just for sex, which you honestly sound pretty indifferent to, but for her time, for her. Ino wanted someone who wanted her and who was willing to show it. Admit it, Shikamaru, you didn’t really want her. She was just convenient.”

“You make me sound like a bad person.” He was looking to the side, out a window, and refusing to meet her eyes.

Sakura shook her head, pink hair flying about. “No, not a bad person, just a lazy person. Sounds like she did all the work in the relationship. I don’t think any girl wants to be part of something so unfulfilling.”

“Thanks a lot, Sakura.” Shikamaru was getting surlier by the second. “You’ve managed to insult me in just about every way except for the standard old man jokes.”

Now it was her turn to snap at him. “You wanted honesty. I’m just telling you what I see, and all you’ve done this whole time is complain about how you were mad that you couldn’t figure it out. Do you even miss her?”

Unable to come up with a good defense, Shikamaru pouted then replied. “Well, at least admit that accusing me of having no sex drive was at least a little bit cruel.”

“Well,” She gave him a challenging smirk. “Do you have one?”

“What is with women and the constant need for sex? Ino was all over me all of the time. It was really uninspiring and pretty annoying.”

“Did you ever think that maybe it was her attempt to get your attention? Women are not usually sex starved monsters in a relationship. She probably just wanted to feel desired.” Sakura sighed. “I can relate to that.”

Now it was Shikamaru’s turn to smirk. “I find it hard to believe that you have trouble in the physical relationship department.”

“Guys are usually not very skilled at turning women on. Arousing a woman isn’t like moving pieces around on a go board.” She felt like she didn’t want to be having this conversation with him right now.

They sat in silence while Shikamaru continued drinking his water. When he finished it he went and got another glass and a towel to clean up what had spilled from his reaction previously. Sakura had taken the time to think about what she had learned this evening.

“You know, Shikamaru,” she leaned back on the couch “It sounds like you just weren’t attracted to Ino. I bet it drove her crazy.”

He smiled a little at this. “I never thought attraction would be an important part of a relationship. I figured most women are the same. Ino was pretty, but you’re pretty too. There shouldn’t be any difference in my attraction levels.” It was almost as if the last part was said to himself, but Sakura had missed it in the sudden rush of vanity she experienced.

It was flattering that Sakura could now be compared on equitable terms with Ino, her rival, and she blushed with pleasure. “You can’t look at it like that. There are more variables. For someone so good at predicting people, you don’t seem to understand women very well at all.” Shikamaru caught her hand quickly and Sakura started, pulling away. She gave him a questioning look.

“Do you need the towel?”

“No,” she shook her head for emphasis and he smiled and let go of her hand. “Thanks though.”

Things had gotten awkward. There was no reason to come to that conclusion logically, Sakura thought to herself, she just knew that they had. He had already taken his seat across from her again and she knew that this would probably keep going until the alcohol in his system put him to sleep.

“So. . . I better get going, I mean. . .” Her eyes shifted around towards the exit—her key to freedom from talking to her friend’s ex boyfriend about how emotionally screwed up he was.

“Go out with me.” His hands were in that tented thinking configuration for which he was particularly infamous.

“What?” It was an attack she had not expected. “You can’t be serious. This is just too much alcohol and a need to prove yourself talking.”

He nodded to her. “Maybe, maybe some of it. But you talk like you have all the answers. If you know what a relationship is supposed to be like then I’m willing to give it a try on your terms. It’s a bother, but it looks like experience is the only way to gain insight into this.”

“That is just about the most unromantic thing you could have said to convince me.” Sakura felt insulted. Even if she was a bit curious to see what molding him to her ideal would result in, at the same time she knew that it wasn’t the way to build a real relationship. You can’t change people to make them something other than what they were. Shikamaru wasn’t hopeless; he just hadn’t been compatible with Ino. She got up and walked over to the door. Shikamaru simply watched her from a distance, not bothering to stand or see her out.

“Think about it a moment, Sakura.” He said from his seat in the living room. “People who know one another less well get into relationships for worse reasons. If you change your mind, I’ll still be here.”

She hesitated. Even if she thought it would be interesting, she didn’t like the way it was divorced from any real emotion. She grasped at straws to dissuade him. “What about sex? I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t find me attractive. You obviously have some sort of set disinterest in the prospect so. . .” Sakura reached for the handle of the door but was stopped by unseen forces. Anger burned within her as she thought about how he was obviously using his shadow jutsu on her. A dirty trick.

Shikamaru stood up from the chair and wandered over, bridging the distance between them. “That’s the second time this evening that you’ve questioned my libido. Just because I didn’t want to do it all the time with Ino doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it at all. That’s a faulty way to approach the issue.” Apparently, when Shikamaru was mad it came out passive aggressively, and this was no real surprise to Sakura. He stood right next to her, not touching her but the threat (promise?) was there. “Would it surprise you to know that I always found you attractive? It was precisely why I didn’t allow myself to approach you. That kind of involvement is. . . troublesome.” Even he found humor in his most overused classification.

There was a shiver running up her spine as she thought about how vulnerable she was right now, and how he had just displayed a side of him that she wasn’t sure how to react to. Once he was back across the room, the jutsu released and she left without a word. What was there to say? He had asked her out, possibly propositioned her, and now everything in her world seemed to be complicated. What was the most ridiculous part was that she found herself tempted by the offer.

When he had stood beside her, after freezing her movements, there had been a moment that she felt like he had been really looking at her. She didn’t feel like another annoying woman, a talking head, which was how he had always seemed to treat her. No, this time Sakura had felt desired, even a little aroused. Shikamaru was an intelligent and attractive man, and hell, if he wanted her. . .

Just so long as she wasn’t doing this just because he obliquely suggested that he wanted her more than he had ever wanted Ino. Petty revenge for a rivalry that had never ended was not a good reason to get into any sort of relationship. . .

Why was she even considering it? This was stupid.

She changed her mind back and forth seven or eight times on the way home. That night she tossed and turned in her bed as she tried to come to some sort of decision. What if Shikamaru was more hurt inside than he thought, and this would actually help him? Was she just a rebound relationship? Had he really wanted to touch her all this time and never said anything? Could she end up growing to love him and then be hurt when he cast her away because it was just an arrangement to him? Could she just put off making a decision and hope he forgot about it?

With heavy marks under her eyes, Sakura went to Shikamaru’s the next afternoon to either beat the crap out of him or talk to him, and she wasn’t precisely sure which one she wanted to do more. She had determined that if he was serious about this whole relationship thing then she was going to do something drastic to make a point and see if his little display had simply been another manipulation.

The boy who answered the door looked far more cranky than usual. It looked to her like he hadn’t had enough water last night before he went to sleep. Even small hangovers could be very unpleasant. Upon seeing who his visitor was he looked both dismayed and unsurprised.

“I suppose you’re here to snipe at me.” He commented wryly as he invited her in. “Not that I can’t say I don’t deserve it.” With crossed arms he crashed down on the couch and waited for her to join him in the living room.

Sakura thought about his behavior last night and tried to see what she had been so angry at and yet slightly attracted to. She was willing to admit that the reason she had been uneasy with being alone with him in any circumstance was because of how she had become more aware of him physically now that he was available again. Not forced to be in his vest, he was sporting one of those little vests that would have made him look juvenile except for the mesh shirt under it and the obviously well developed muscles that flexed beneath it. Unlike most ninjas his lazy habits had also given him a face rounded with flesh, but it made him look more comfortable than sharp cheekbones would have. His eyes were sharp enough for the rest of him at any rate, and they were trained on her in a manner that she swore were trying to physically extract information from her.

It was a relief that he acted so disinterested most of the time, because holding all of his focus was intimidating. She had always respected his intelligence, even envied it, but also thought less of him for not using it to its greatest advantage. Now that he was a jounin, he was forced to use it and even if the complaining never stopped he was a good soldier, a good ninja, and fulfilled every mission he was given.

Then there was Chouji. If ever Sakura had a doubt about how connected Shikamaru was with other people, she just needed to point to Chouji to know that Shikamaru cared about others. The way they looked out for one another and talked to one another had been more the way Sakura expected best friends to act than the way Naruto and Sasuke had treated one another. She could do with some of that caring, but there was no guarantee that she would get that.

That was what today was all about. She was going to test his resolve, and then make her decision.

“I came here because of what you said to me yesterday.” She chose not to sit, since she was placed in a more powerful position by remaining standing. Shikamaru was a strategy expert, he would appreciate the little gesture.

“Of course you did. Look I made an ass of myself yesterday, so you can just forget. . .”

“And I think I will say yes with a but.”

“. . . when you leave and. . . what did you just say?” There was total disbelief etched on to his features. “What’s in it for you? I didn’t exactly present things very tactfully last night.”

Sakura thought about it. “I won’t say that there’s a certain falseness to just getting together for the sake of it, and I’m not going to try to change you like Ino tried to do. . . but I know you well enough to like you and I think it might be worth a shot. An honest shot at that.”

“Where’s the ‘but’ part?” He considered her words, shifting his eyes back and forth as if he felt hunted by the direction that this was going.

“I want you to kiss me. If there is no spark at all then I don’t think I want to try. I might as well just be your friend if you don’t care to touch me at all. And don’t mistake me, I do want to be your friend regardless of the outcome.” Sakura ran a nervous hand through her hair. It was one thing to think about doing something bold like asking him to kiss her, but then it was another to be physically here with him and demand it.

There was a smirk on Shikamaru’s face now, and she wished he didn’t look so sure of himself. Her uncertainty had already given him the upper hand. Slowly, he rose from the couch. Sakura didn’t move from her spot as he advanced, as paralyzed as if he had enforced it upon her. “So if I kiss you, and neither of us feels anything, then we’ll just part ways and we won’t have to complicate one another’s lives?” She nodded and he put sweaty palms at her waist to draw her in closer to him. “Then let’s just get this over with.”

It was a nice kiss, not great but serviceable. Their lips met, there was a pleasing softness to it, and then they drew apart with sheepish smiles and Shikamaru pulled himself away to sit back down on the couch, fingers tenting. For some reason, Sakura felt deeply disappointed. She had thought that maybe there was a chance there would be a spark there, and to realize that it was just his drunkenness and her anxiety that had given her such a false impression was more than a little depressing. This was the most interested she had been in a guy for any reason in a long time.

The sigh that left her lips reflected her let down emotions and she trudged over to the doorway. What was there to say now? She would have made it out too, if not for the crash she heard from the living room and the loud curse. These noises were followed by Shikamaru practically running into her, slamming her back against the door and his lips onto hers. Their first kiss had been tame, a pathetic example of its kind, but this was brutally erotic as he crushed himself over her and touched every inch of her within reach.

“What about your disinterest? What about complications?” She tried to catch her breath from his delightful assault. Their foreheads met and his canny eyes searched her own.

“Fuck it. I’d regret it if I didn’t show you exactly how much I want this, want you.”

She was almost wondering at him. “So it wasn’t a lie, you really do find me attractive? You would actually want me around sometimes?”

“At least I could actually talk to you about some things. Ino was never interested in talking about missions or about anything more complicated then domestic stuff or plans for events I didn’t care about. . .” His breath was hot on her cheek and Sakura wanted to stretch out her tongue and flick his lips. “And it’s true, I’ve always wanted you. But I figured that it was for precisely that reason I shouldn’t get involved. When you want someone, but they don’t want you, then that person has immeasurable amounts of influence over you. . .”

“You were my friend’s boyfriend, of course I would act disinterested in you.” She ran a hand up his side and felt him flinch.

He laughed, low and masculine, filling her with a wonderful sensation. “It’s nice to know that at least one of us knows how to stay away from complications.” Then Sakura silenced him by tracing a path with her tongue over his lips to the side of his face and finally to his ear where she tugged at his earring playfully with her teeth.

“You were right. I was irritated at you last night because I knew what you said about my motives was correct. I thought I had things figured out.” His voice was husky and she could feel the way his body was responding to her.

Sakura gave a throaty laugh into his ear. “I was wrong, you do know women. Better than I imagined.” She withdrew and began to swirl patterns in the soft skin at the back of his neck with her nails. “If you keep telling me I’m right I might just say yes to whatever you ask.”

Following his short laugh, Shikamaru descended again upon her kiss swollen mouth. He still had her pinned against the door, and every time she struggled against him she felt him pause in the movement of his tongue and lips. The erection caught between them was consuming her interest, and when she put a hand down between them Shikamaru strained into her touch and nearly knocked the breath from her lungs with how tightly he pushed her into the wood behind her.

Her gasps of something other than pleasure caught his attention, finally, and he took her hand and led her back to his bedroom. Before he opened the door he turned back to look to her for permission. She was sure that if she felt something was wrong, then she would have stopped them, and right now all she could think about was how nice it would be to have his body pressed against hers once again.

Apparently, Shikamaru had had the same thought because they had not made it a couple steps inside before he was kissing her again and pushing them both towards the bed in the corner. They fell down in a tangle of flailing limbs and grasps hands which lifted shirts and undid pants on the way down.

There was a struggle for dominance as they rolled about the bed, and eventually Sakura came out on top with a cry of triumph which transformed into a moan of delight as Shikamaru busied his hands with caressing her breasts and flicking her nipples until they puckered for his appreciative gaze. Sakura’s head was lolled to the side, her lips slightly parted as her quickened breaths escaped between them. When she rocked her hips over him, Shikamaru seemed to lose concentration again.

Sensing that he was over stimulated and maybe even a little bit unsure about what Sakura herself might want in all this, she didn’t leave him any more doubt when she got off of him and pulled off the last of her clothing. Standing there, beautifully naked and utterly confident, he took a moment to just admire her.

Those sharp eyes of his at first seemed to be judging her, but before an irritated flush could stain her skin, he reached out a hand to her and she joined him on the bed again. Now he rose and finished undressing the rest of the way, but his eyes did not leave her exposed flesh and Sakura didn’t know how it was possible that he could make her feel more naked then she already was.

Once their flesh was again pressed together, this time with no barriers to chafe against them, Sakura felt how much it was like they were igniting. Her body was so hot that everywhere his mouth trailed, it left a cool path around her breasts and belly before reaching back up to her neck. While Shikamaru concentrated on making what would no doubt be champion kiss marks all over her body from his enthusiastic and attentive mouth, Sakura found his full and throbbing member with her hands and stroked him with care.

Pretty soon he was entirely distracted from his task and it seemed as if his whole world was turning around her hands on his erection and their torturously slowly movements. Almost as if he were getting revenge for her delaying his release, she felt him seek her moist opening with quavering fingers and then gasped as two of his fingers began to pump in and out of her.

They were at an impasse for long minutes, each one going still as the other tried to drive them closer to orgasm. Each pause lost them progress and a renewed sense of need for their fulfillment, and it didn’t take too much longer before Sakura decided to take control again and get things moving along. She dropped her hand from his shaft and extracted his fingers from inside of her, then straddled him on the bed and pushed his chest back down when he seemed to be trying to protest the arrangement.

Agonizingly slowly she slid him into her prepared channel, and Shikamaru grasped her thighs and grit his teeth as they fit themselves together. Sakura set the pace, enjoying the control and flexibility of movement she had from this vantage point. After what they had just been doing, it didn’t take long for the warm tension inside of her to build. Shikamaru was whispering encouragements, curse words, her name, anything that came to mind as he restrained himself from speeding things up or taking back the control that Sakura seemed to be relishing.

When she came, Sakura felt a keening moan rip from her lips and she shuddered over Shikamaru. The last few strokes as she rode out the waves of her orgasm were made all the more exciting for her when Shikamaru pulsed and found his own release inside of her, biting his lip to keep from crying out. She stayed there, straddled over his hips and gasping, before casually toppling over and disengaging them in favor of curling in next to him to enjoy the afterglow.

“I don’t think I could have ever planned that.” Shikamaru said with some wonder in his voice. “I don’t think something like that could be planned.”

Sakura just laughed, self conscious now that she wasn’t wrapped up in her own ecstasy and his.

“You know what this means don’t you?” Shikamaru dug an arm under her and pulled her closer, despite the sweat and the heat of their bodies.

“What?” Sakura lazily looked up at him, tired now that she had expelled so much energy in addition to her lack of sleep the night before.

“You’re my girlfriend now. I think that we more than met your condition.” He kissed her, quickly, as if to remind her of his attempt earlier to throw her off by giving her a passionless kiss.

Sakura let her eyes fall closed and hoped that he would let her sleep since that’s what she so dearly wanted now that she was physically and mentally spent from all the exercise and the thinking she had done before she got to his apartment. “You won’t hear me argue.”

She didn’t see the look of bliss that crossed Shikamaru’s face after that short statement. “I think I could love a girl like you.”


	4. KibaSaku

Sakura had been practicing alone in the forest for quite some time. She didn’t frequent the spots that the other ninja her age did for this task, mostly because she was not up to their level in a lot of ways and she didn’t want to make a fool of herself. As much now as when she was young there was a streak of pride in her that wouldn’t quit. When it came to combat, her skill set had always been under where most of everyone else was. By no means was she _bad_ at it, really, compared to even a skilled fighter in general but there was a reason she had made a much better medic nin than anything else and she had far more reason to keep those skills at peak performance. Tsunade had always warned her, however, that she should not stay out of practice with forms of combat, and so Sakura continued to train. Being deep in the forest provided her the space to concentrate without being interrupted.

Seeing as she was so far away from the village, when someone burst through the brush at her, she had launched two senbon and a kunai before she recognized it as a person she knew. Immediately she felt guilty, as one of the senbon had hit squarely in his leg, and then angry because of the scare he had given her. A grimaced toothy grin awaited her as she stomped over to the injured boy.

“Inuzuka Kiba, how dare you burst in on me when I’m training? Don’t you know better than to do something so reckless? I am a ninja after all.” It galled her to have to remind people. She tried to reach over to pull the senbon out of his thigh, but he pulled back from her and instead tossed the other senbon and the kunai she had thrown, which he had caught, down at her feet.

“I didn’t think you’d attack me so fast. I was distracted. Damn but you have good reflexes but some bad eyes.” His shaggy hair was damp with sweat and he looked tired. Sakura took pity on him, softening her severe expression. This was all just a mistake. 

“Why don’t you rest a minute and tell me what happened. I’ll take care of your leg.” He looked suspiciously at her. “Don’t worry, I’m trained for this after all. It’s just a scratch really.” Sakura understood too well how other ninja mistrusted medic nin. To go to a medic, for some ninja, was an admission of weakness. And manly men like Kiba were some of the least likely to seek help even for bad wounds. This little senbon really wasn’t much of a problem, but she didn’t want him to be infected just because she didn’t recognize him fast enough. At the very least she would catch hell from Tsunade later.

“I guess you could. It’s your fault after all.” Kiba had always been direct to the point of being insulting. Sakura just shrugged it off; she understood he didn’t mean anything personal and that it was just his mouth moving before his brain caught up. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything else out here have you?” She caught a trace of worry in his face.

She took some bandages out of her bag, and disinfectant, as she prepared for wrapping up his leg after she took out the senbon. “No, why?”

Kiba looked a little bit nervous as he answered. “It’s Akamaru. See. . . he kind of ran off.”

“Why would he do that? Aren’t you two close? That doesn’t seem like him at all. You should be able to find him, right?” Her rapid questions just seemed to upset Kiba more.

“I can’t find him if he doesn’t want to be found.” Kiba snapped.

Sakura put up her hands in a defensive manner. “No need to get mad at me. I’m just trying to understand.”

With a mumble Kiba said something under his breath after they were both silent a moment. Sakura asked him to speak up, and then wished she had let it go when Kiba told her. “It’s early spring. All the dogs are in heat. He ran off to go find some bitch.”

“Kiba!”

“That’s the technical term! Don’t give me that stuffy act like you’re insulted or whatever!”

Being a medic nin, and not a veterinarian, Sakura didn’t know much about dogs or how their mating practices worked. Regardless, it didn’t seem like the best time to tell Kiba to take off his pants but she needed him to if she was going to bind the wound. Instead, she sat there with a blush on her cheeks and tried to tell herself that she was a medic. The human form was perfectly neutral to her. Kiba didn’t make it any easier for her as he kept talking, now that someone was willing to listen to his worries.

“It’s only been a week, and now every bitch in town is just dying for it. They make so much noise at night I can hardly sleep and Akamaru has been whining for days on end because I’m forced to keep him chained up. Poor guy.” Sakura was looking down at her hands, clutching the medical supplies. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’re getting sick or something.”

“It’s nothing.” She forced herself to take a more professional attitude. Pretending that she was a matron, an old hand at dressing wounds, and not the embarrassed rookie she really was at this, she said, “Could you please remove your pants so I could treat your wound?”

Kiba didn’t blink an eye. “Sure.” He was taking down his pants without a trace of shame and still talking as Sakura waited with a stoic expression printed onto her face. “So this morning I felt so bad, because Akamaru has been whining, and I just let him run around free for a minute. Then my sister called me, right, and I looked away for like a second and ‘poof’ he’s gone. . . Oi, Sakura, my pants are off now.”

With efficient hands she inspected the wound, and noted how cleanly the senbon had pierced itself into his thigh. She pulled it out quickly, hoping to make the pain last only as long as necessary. Blood seeped out from the wound and she disinfected it before wrapping a bandage neatly around his leg. Kiba had watched her silently, not moving or making any noise even when she knew it couldn’t have been a pleasant experience. Strangely, he began to fidget when she ran her hands over the muscles of his thigh, searching for any abnormalities or other injuries. All she found were powerful leg muscles, warm and supple, and not nearly as boring as the charts of the human musculature that she was expected to memorize. Kiba growled, and Sakura assumed she had aggravated his wound, so stopped.

“Sorry, I just needed to make sure everything was in working condition.”

“Everything is in damn good working condition. . . no thanks to you.” He snarled a little as he said it, and Sakura sighed again at his antagonism. He turned away from her and put on his pants again. She felt like she needed to make things up to him somehow. It wasn’t like she had truly handicapped him, but the feeling of obligation was strong.

Kiba turned around and gave her an enigmatic glance. She caught his eye. “I’d like to help you search for Akamaru. Is there anything I can do?”

He snorted, then seemed to actually consider her offer. “Sure,” he responded. “You might come in handy, I guess. If he’s hurt or something.” Then he took off at a brisk pace further into the woods.

“How complimentary. . .” Sakura mumbled to herself before following.

*  
*  
*

“I can’t believe this!” Kiba swore vehemently. “This is total shit! Where is Akamaru?”

Sakura, who had been hearing this and similar renditions of it for the better part of a couple hours, was getting fed up. “Is it really so bad that he. . . fulfills his instincts?”

This warranted a particularly condescending look from Kiba. “You know nothing about breeding.”

Now it was her temper that snapped a bit. She hated being treated as if she were stupid even more than she hated being referenced to as useless. “Then enlighten me.”

“A dog’s pedigree is important. He isn’t allowed to breed with just any old bitch out there. Selecting a possible mate for him will be my responsibility as soon as there are some good choices. Right now none of the bitches have very good hip structures, but my clan has been looking outside Konoha for better possibilities. . .”

This was actually somewhat interesting. Sakura eyed Kiba with new respect. He often seemed irresponsible, but he really did try to think some things through it seemed.

“. . . and in addition, Akamaru isn’t just some ordinary dog. Most normal bitches wouldn’t be able to handle his pups. They could kill her, and then die themselves and that would be a tragedy. It’s my duty to make sure that something careless like this doesn’t happen.” Kiba was blaming himself, it was obvious, and Sakura felt bad for him and his tortured state of mind.

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “You could have him fixed. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about this at all.”

Kiba looked scandalized.

“Why don’t you go stab Uzumaki in the back a few hundred times? It would betray his trust about as much as that would betray Akamaru’s in me.” There was bitterness in his voice as he advanced on her, backing her up against a tree with his eyes on fire. “You don’t understand at all.” His hands were resting on the tree, caging her in, and she felt smothered by his presence.

With a dry throat, Sakura tried to calm Kiba down. “You’re overreacting Kiba. No, I don’t understand, that’s true. Then again, you could just help me understand. I don’t see why you should be so touchy about this.” He was so much taller now, then when they had been genin years ago. The dark tattooed marks of his clan stood out on his cheeks in blood dark scratches, and made him all the more intimidating. His eyes flickered to her lips and then up to her wide green eyes before he pushed off the tree and backed away. Sakura assumed he liked playing the alpha male a little too much sometimes, and that little display had been part of it.

“I’m just on edge. There are a lot of mistakes I made today.”

“We all make mistakes.” She tried to smile and jogged a bit to keep up with his quickening pace. “But if you forgive me mine then I’ll forgive you yours.”

Kiba gave her a questioning glance. “You’re a funny girl, aren’t you?”

“I’m as regular as the next girl.”

He didn’t seem to buy that, but his askance glare was quickly turned to the forest as they continued on without talking to search for Akamaru. It had been somewhat late when Kiba had first stumbled across Sakura and now the sky was turning the faint yellow that promised dusk was soon to follow. 

Since she was getting a little tired and they were a few miles away from Konoha, Sakura had been trying to find a good time to tell Kiba she was going back. He might very well search all night but she didn’t think that he would expect her too as well. The main issue that had her hesitating was the way that Kiba kept touching his thigh. It was only every once in a while, but Sakura was trained to notice details and particularly details that pertained to injuries. His behaviors alerted her to what might be a problem.

“Kiba.” She said it again and then nearly shouted it to get his attention. “Kiba!”

“What? You’re already tired?”

“Well, yes, but that isn’t what I wanted to ask you.”

Kiba stopped since Sakura had halted as well. “What? Spit it out.”

“I think that I may have used some of my poisoned needles on you. You keep touching your wound like it. . . like it might be bothering you.”

He had gone still at the word ‘poisoned’. “It itches a little. . . you’re telling me you damn well _poisoned_ me?”

Quickly, she tried to dispel his alarm. “It isn’t poison, well. . . only in the technical sense. It just functions as a mild sedative. It isn’t any worse for your system then a night of overdoing it with alcohol, really. Though it will slow you down a little bit and it does cause the wound to itch around the edges of the skin. . .”

“Thanks a lot there, Sakura.” Sarcasm dripped from his words like heavy syrup. “Now at least I know why I feel kind of sleepy too. I still need to find Akamaru. I’m sure I’ve already failed by now and my family will make me go to every litter of pups in Konoha to make sure that Akamaru isn’t the father.” There was fatalism in his words that made Sakura feel compassion for him again. Kiba sank to the ground, back against a tree, and sighed.

She rummaged around in her pack and took out a small bag of snacks. “It isn’t much, but this should help you keep up your energy a little.” Sakura sat down next to him, also leaning against the tree as she handed Kiba the packet of crackers.

“Thanks Sakura.” Kiba said, for the first time being gentle to her since he had run across her. When Sakura shivered, rubbing her arms at the way the spring day was becoming cold with dusk, Kiba moved closer so that their sides touched and she could keep in some of that precious heat.

They sat there companionably while Kiba ate her snacks. Sakura looked around at the forest and the way everything seemed to be budding. It all looked new and hopeful, now that winter was passing away. There was always something pleasant about the return of all the green of the forest that appeared to die every year.

“What are you thinking about? That big head of your must have something going on in it.” As much as the reference to her large head was unappreciated, Sakura knew that he was trying to make conversation and not insult her. So she answered honestly.

“I was thinking how nice it was out here. Everything is blossoming again, but not all the trees have their leaves. It’s very hopeful. Ino talked to me a lot back in the day about flowers, and so I always look for them when spring comes back.”

Kiba smiled at that, and Sakura thought he looked rather adorable when he was being candid. “Just because the flowers and leaves aren’t all back yet doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot going on in the forest. I feel bad for people like you. My clan has always had such a close connection with animals. . . we know that lots of them are active year round. When everyone else thinks winter is dead, we know better.” Sakura knew that the various clans were proud of their specialized skills, and even if the Inuzuka were not the most powerful, they seemed happy with their lot in life.

While Kiba talked about the animals that just lived their lives during the colder months Sakura found herself concentrating on the side of her that was pressed next to his. He seemed to be radiating warmth like a heater and she envied him that. The memory of running her hands over his thigh came to her vividly and she found herself examining Kiba in a way she had never thought to previously.

His eyes lit up when he talked, she saw, and there was a vitality about him that just seemed to pour out all the time. She could barely tell that the sedative she knew was coursing through his veins was having any effect. The energy he had seemed to be particularly stubborn, and that was consistent with what she knew of him. Every so often she would hear about the missions he went on from Naruto who kept up with the progress of most of the ninjas in the village as if he were measuring himself against them all. Kiba was strong, that much she knew, though not as strong as some. That must be a source of irritation to him, as she went back to her former musings about how he liked to act the part of the alpha male.

There was an attractive roughness to him, a sort of untamed quality that was just playful enough to be approachable. The shaggy hair and the frayed look of his clothes and his weapons made him seem like the kind of ninja who actually got into a job and knew how to use the tools of his trade. Not afraid to get dirty was another way to put it. The tattoos added something too, further making him seem almost foreign compared to the rest of the people of Konoha. He knew he was unique and gloried in it.

Kiba’s body. . . well. . . if his thigh was a representative sample of the rest of him then it was no wonder the Inuzuka’s were in no danger of becoming extinct. She knew he had speed to go with that power, if he had kept up his training, so he wouldn’t be bulky. Just lean and. . . AUGH! She had exclaimed the last part out loud and then clapped a hand over her mouth.

“What are you staring at me for? It’s a sign of aggression in the animal world, you know.” Kiba interrupted Sakura’s reverie.

Sakura had absolutely no intention of telling Kiba that she had been picturing what he looked like under his clothes. Instead she cleared her throat and smiled. It was probably her naughty inner voice, but there seemed no helping it when she blurted out, “So, do you go into heat too?” Some days she wished the ground would open up and swallow her down. Gaara of the Desert had a good thing going with that.

For whatever reason, Kiba just seemed to find this funny. “It isn’t the same. I don’t go into heat like dogs do. . . but humans are in heat all the time.”

This was too interesting a topic for Sakura’s oversexed mind to be able to resist, particularly when there was an attractive male pressed next to her. “How can you tell?”

“Well,” Kiba said, enjoying being the expert opinion here. “There are signals. Women are more subtle about it then men, usually. That’s the funny thing about humans. Seems like when a guy wants a girl, everybody knows it, but with girls you never know. Maybe my clan has a bit of an advantage, though.”

“How so?” If she didn’t know better, she’d say that Kiba’s hand had purposefully brushed her thigh. But that could have just been her hormones talking, or wishing, and it was more likely an accident.

The smile he gave her was predatory. “Smell. And of course the fact that we know more about the physical signals of mating for animals then probably just about any other clan. And humans are animals too.” That was certainly an arm that was around her shoulders now. “Still feeling cold?” He asked with amusement and something else girding his voice. It was rough, whatever it was, and forced Sakura to shudder.

“I’m getting warmer.” Her eyes were wide, and she realized belatedly that she was probably asking for trouble with all this. But she had had worse impulses and acted on them. Maybe just one kiss wouldn’t hurt anything. You didn’t know until you tried.

Ironically, Kiba beat her to the punch while she was still debating it in her head. He curled the arm around that had been behind her and brought his face down to meet hers. There was more enthusiasm than skill in the kiss, and Sakura found herself smiling as they pressed together, but the smile didn’t last once his unoccupied hand began to knead at her breast. At first he was just pushing at it, getting the texture of it memorized, and then he began to rub his thumb over her nipple to make it pucker beneath her clothing. Somehow, while she was paying more attention to his hand than his mouth, he had snuck his tongue in there and she tasted the salty flavor of the crackers he had eaten.

They broke apart and Kiba was about to dive back in with even more gusto when Sakura held up a hand between them. “Stop a moment.” She panted. “Please.”

He huffed, but leaned back against the tree trunk. There was disappointment written on his features but he had respected her decision to stop. “I guess this is where I should apologize. But I’m not going to. If I apologize, then it would mean that it was a mistake.” Kiba looked over at Sakura, eyes hot, “This was not a mistake.”

Sakura hummed low in her throat as she thought. This was surprising but not unpleasant. She had never been the kind of girl to go for casual sex, but Kiba’s touch had been more inspiring than that of the few men she had dated since she had gained some curves that the boys of Konoha could no longer ignore. Naruto had protectively kept a lot of the more shady boys out of her path, the playboys, but for some reason many of those kind were the ones who seemed to be able to catch a girl on fire. Even if Kiba was not a playboy, she doubted he wanted something serious.

She could live with that. 

Kiba was looking to her for a signal, but she far surpassed his expectation by getting up and then kneeling down in front of him. Straddling his sitting form, she pressed against him and with a tinge a pride felt the hardness that greeted her at his middle. She swallowed his startled exclamation which quickly became a groan as she slowly moved herself over him. Even with all their clothes on, she knew that kind of friction would please him, and the way he practically drove his tongue into her mouth and his hands up her shirt seemed to confirm it.

Once Sakura leaned her head back to enjoy the sensations his questing hands were working on her body he took the opportunity to explore her neck. All her hair fell to one side as he sucked the fair skin at her throat. When that proved not to be satisfying enough for him, he began to paw at her shirt until he caught enough of the fabric to tear it down the front. Sakura tried to protest but he kissed her harshly, tongue sweeping over hers and she couldn’t keep up any solid thoughts let alone a reason to stop him from destroying her clothing.

The shirt was ripped halfway to her navel when Kiba felt he had enough room to stick his hand in and feel the soft skin of her breast freely as he had been desiring to so badly. While he was mesmerized by just how petal soft Sakura’s breasts were, Sakura took advantage of his brief lack of activity to open up his jacket and run her hands over his chest as well. It was just as she had suspected, as the lean muscles jumped at her touch. 

Impatiently Sakura rubbed herself over his erection and he shook beneath her with the force of his need. She suspected he was holding back for some reason, so she decided to take the initiative once again.

“Kiba,” Sakura gave a throaty whisper into his ear. “I’m not doing this in the dirt.”

He didn’t seem to care, whatever she wanted he would obey as his lust addled brain slowly responded to her demand. First he pushed at her body, and Sakura got up from where she had been straddling him on the ground. Kiba himself practically jumped up after her, hands all over her body. It was gratifying to be so sexy to a man that he couldn’t stop touching you, Sakura thought, and she was helping him undo his pants as he worked on hers. His were easy enough, but when he couldn’t seem to figure out how all the buttons and zippers on hers, she felt rather than heard the buttons pop soon followed by her skin being exposed to the air.

There was no time for awkwardness or even more undressing as Kiba backed her up against the tree and slammed himself into her more than ready body. Sakura wrapped her legs around him as he pounded into her at a furious pace. She didn’t think he could keep up such an energetic display, but she was wrong and found herself reacting to his forceful pistoning with the slow realization that he was actually going to get her to orgasm this way if he kept it up.

Kiba’s hungry mouth sought her neck, already beginning to bruise, and this time his teeth were biting into her lightly. It was a possessive grip, slightly painful but more exhilarating, and Sakura finally found that it shocked her to her senses enough to meet his thrusts with similar passion. His concentration was beginning to flag as he neared his climax, and she began to encourage him wordlessly with her loud involuntary moans of pleasure at the crest of each stroke.

She knew she was close and so was he, but it proved to be Kiba who let go first. He shuddered and bit down hard into her shoulder but only paused a moment before gamely continuing so that Sakura found her world exploding soon after. Locked together, panting, Sakura smiled as Kiba licked the wound at her neck that he had made. After setting her feet back on the ground, they separated and Kiba pulled up his pants again. Sakura managed to get hers on to, despite the lack of a button or two, and tried to put together her shirt to cover a little more of her chest then it was currently managing.

The sweat on her skin was uncomfortable but not unfamiliar since she had been training earlier that day, but this was definitely more gratifying. All over she felt like she was glowing, and Kiba too seemed to have a spring in his step as he paced about the small clearing they had stopped at. When he couldn’t take it any more he practically bounced over and gave her a sweet kiss on the lips before shying away again. They smiled at one another and Sakura remarked to herself about how Kiba was very energetic after sex. You wouldn’t suspect that he had ever had sedative pumping through his veins.

“I can’t believe that the sedative didn’t slow you down.” Sakura said out loud, continuing where her thoughts had left off.

“Hell no!” Kiba laughed. “There were more important things to be done!”

Now Sakura laughed. “Nice to know I’m important.”

Kiba gave her an oddly sincere look. “Of course you are.” Then, as if he were trying to change the subject deliberately he moved up to her and stroked the skin around her wound. “You should take care of that and go back to town while I find Akamaru.”

She had to admit that his suggestion was probably the best one, and nodded. It wasn’t deep, but it was stinging quite a lot and she should probably treat it with more than only the little bit of supplies that she had here. “I’ll do that.” Kiba watched her as she left, but she turned around before she was out of hearing range to add. “Come visit me when you do find him, I’d like to see you again.” He nodded.

Sakura wished that Kiba were more the boyfriend type because she actually enjoyed his presence. She supposed she’d have to settle for really good sex, and invest in some more medical supplies as well as some easily torn turtleneck shirts. With a smile on her face, she took off running for Konoha.

Kiba watched Sakura go fondly. Now he had even more reason to find Akamaru, if for nothing else than to tell him the good news. After all, even if dogs didn’t, an Inuzuka mated for life. Wouldn’t Sakura be surprised when she found out, he thought with a smile. She’d just have to get used to it. He wouldn’t be content to make puppy eyes at her for years, like Lee, and now that she was his he would make sure no other man would get near her.

Yes, all things considered, Kiba felt it was a good day.


	5. ShinoSaku

Covering up the eyes was a good tactic to disturb your opponents, Sakura thought. Too bad it also disturbed your friends. She almost felt bad when Hinata nearly dropped a hot cup of tea in Shino’s lap, but she was nervous in general. It wasn’t often that Hinata hosted any kind of event and she wasn’t used to all the attention. More likely it was Naruto’s presence that was unsettling her, and everyone knew the truth of it, but the boy himself had been impossibly dense about it all from day one. Sakura had tried to take action by bringing along Hinata with her whenever she was visiting Naruto, but the shy girl had never been comfortable enough to talk to Naruto at all. The only real key to getting Naruto to liking you, so far as Sakura could see, was acknowledging him and getting his attention. Hinata loved him enough for a whole clan of people, but she was one of the most forgettable individuals in the room at any gathering.

Sakura didn’t think these things to be mean, since Hinata knew this well and sometimes softly commented on it. She admired Sakura because Sakura was someone who blossomed rather than shrunk when attention was given to her. Being the heir to such a large and powerful family had forced introverted little Hinata into a tight shell of personal fear, but Sakura knew that she would have thrived with so much attention if she had been the Hyuuga heir.

Being a good friend, Sakura was perfectly willing to try to help along Hinata’s ambition to get Naruto to notice her. She tried to hold parties, but Hinata would just go hide in corners, the bathroom, the back yard. . . anywhere which she could be decently sure that it would be hard to see more than two or three people at once. Sakura decided to change tactics.

Instead of big parties she began to invite people who Hinata was familiar and comfortable with, her team, and Naruto as well in an attempt to give her gentle friend a chance to shine. Kiba, who would have blown away any chance of subtlety if he had known, was not let in on the secret reason that the two former genin teams were meeting so regularly but he was happy enough to be around people. However, from the beginning, Shino seemed to understand what the interplay between the various parties here meant. Sakura had not known that the Aburame clan member was so shrewd until he had approached her one evening when everyone else was leaving. He lingered in the doorway, tall and silent, threatening to Sakura who remembered all too clearly the bugs that lay just under his skin.

“You need help.” He had said simply. Sakura remembered bristling.

“Excuse me?”

“Uzumaki is not someone who will understand what you are doing. It will take years. And I think Hinata deserves better.” Shino’s voice was flat, so Sakura didn’t know how to take the comment.

“Naruto is a fine person, and both he and Hinata deserve every happiness.” Her arms crossed defensively. She wished the unpleasant boy with his concealing coat and glass covered eyes would just leave her alone to her plans. They weren’t bad plans. . . were they? Dammit, she didn’t like doubting herself!

Shino shifted on his feet. “You misunderstand me. I want to help.”

This eased Sakura’s feelings a little, but not by much. His words had not disturbed her nearly as much as his very presence. “Then what do you suggest we do?”

The silence that followed was abrupt, jarring, and Sakura tried not to grind her teeth as she waited. She wished she could tell which way he was looking but the glasses were too good at what they did. Maybe if she saw his eyes she would just be all the more disturbed by him. What if they were like a bug’s? Her body shivered, repulsed.

“I have a plan.” He said. “Bring Hinata next Friday evening to dinner at the ramen place, the one Naruto likes so much. Can you do that?” The mystery was intriguing to Sakura. She could give him the benefit of the doubt in this case, with a nod she sealed the deal (anything to avoid a handshake), and Shino was gone. It was a relief to be out of his unfaltering gaze.

Funny how so much could change in a few months. What had collectively taken Sakura and Hinata years to think about and try to plan for, Shino managed in just three months. His tactic each time was essentially the same, but Sakura had to admire how effective it was. She had recognized it immediately that first night when they had all gotten ramen, and Sakura wished she had seen it first instead of making an absolute idiot of herself.

Shino and Naruto had been eating ramen, the former barely touching it and the latter scarfing it down as fast as possible, when Sakura and Hinata arrived and ‘bumped into’ them. Naruto was excited to see the girls and naturally asked them to join him and Shino, but as soon as they had comfortably settled in Shino ‘accidentally’ spilled his ramen onto Sakura.

He apologized tersely, but seeing as it had just been sitting there it wasn’t hot, just an inconvenience. When Sakura stood up and stormed off to the bathroom, Shino followed her, ostensibly to apologize. However, before she could launch into an irritated tirade, Shino pointed out that Naruto and Hinata were talking. Just the two of them were sharing a brief but impersonal moment of commentary about the accident, but at least it was conversation. Sakura hadn’t ever really thought to fix it so that the two of them were alone much because Hinata would just seize up, but maybe this one on one time was what they needed. If they started out slow, then she could grow comfortable with everyday topics and move on sometime to something deeper. Hinata was a good listener, and Naruto could talk anyone into distraction.

Noting the way Shino’s hand had lingered on her arm, Sakura pulled away. She was irritated now at him for seeing the obvious solution, but she was also grateful to have a partner in this little project who she could trust.

“So I guess the four of us will be spending a lot of time together then?” Her wry comment, not made to express any real pleasure at the prospect, still generated a positive reaction from Shino. Over his coat she could even see a corner of his mouth quirked into a smile. For the first time she wondered: what had Shino been doing at all those get togethers she had had to try to get Naruto and Hinata together? Had he just been watching? She didn’t remember him interacting with very many people, that was certain.

For a flash of a moment Sakura saw that Shino, like Hinata, was a solitary person. It was not as obvious and it seemed to be far more voluntary, but it was still probably lonesome. Most people were just like Sakura and put at a loss to feel at ease in his presence due to his bloodline quality. The Aburame clan were always well respected, but had they ever been well liked? She felt bad for a moment, at her prejudice, even if she still took a step back from him and fled to the bathroom to finish cleaning up.

But her prediction had been correct, and she certainly saw more of Naruto, Hinata, and Shino. All the ways they could bump into one another always surprised her. Either Sakura or Shino would invite one of the other two possible lovebirds out to do something and then tell the other conspirator well in advance. Once they were all together, Sakura would either distract Shino with something or he would just wander off and Sakura would chase after. It took a couple months of this before Naruto began to catch on to what was going on.

Of course, when the question came from him, Sakura was absolutely floored by it.

“Are you and Shino, you know, goin’ out?” Naruto scratched the back of his head in slight embarrassment at having to ask such a question, and Sakura tried not to choke on the water she had been drinking. They were running together, just for fun, and this was not a planned Hinata-Naruto day. In this short break, Naruto seemed to be oddly thoughtful but now that he had spit it out she was at a loss for words.

Naruto kept going as Sakura coughed up water. “I mean, every time we run into him you run off to go be alone. I mean, it’s cool and stuff because Shino’s a great guy, but I had hoped you’d tell me on your own. . .”

“No no no, you have it all wrong Naruto!” Sakura put a hand on his shoulder. Now that she had started it that way, what should she tell him? Maybe a little lie wouldn’t hurt. Things seemed to be going well between him and Hinata, it would be a shame to blow it all by telling him she had been tricking him all this time. Even if it was well intentioned, this could cause the cheery boy to sour to Hinata just on principle. Might as well dig herself in deep on this one. “He doesn’t know I like him.” She hoped her acting was good. “Hinata has been helping me out, setting things up so I can be along with him.”

Inside, she rejoiced at being so clever. Naruto immediately volunteered to help too. He wanted his dear friend, who had become like a sister to him, to be happy. If Shino was the boy that could make her happy, then he would cooperate with anything Sakura and Hinata had in mind. And the next few weeks had Naruto and Hinata scheming and talking to one another all in the quest for Sakura’s happiness. It was a great twist.

For some reason she wasn’t entirely sure of, she chose not to tell Shino what was going on. It wouldn’t be appropriate, and she didn’t know how well he could pretend reactions so to have it all be a surprise was a better way. Strangely, once she got the picture in her mind of how good a boyfriend Shino would be, the picture was hard to dislodge. 

Obviously, she was repulsed by him physically. . . right? 

She wasn’t so sure anymore. They spent so much time together that she could sit next to him, bump into him, or even put her hand onto him to get his attention and there was no shiver of disgust like at the beginning of this little act. He had always been solicitous to her, never demanding she go places and often treating when they would meet at a place that sold food. They talked, though Sakura held up more than her end of the vocalizations, and in his few responses he seemed to consider her opinions and respect them. If only she had any idea of what he looked like. . .

But that would make her shallow, wouldn’t it? She had chased after a pretty face before, and weren’t his good actions so much of a better recommendation. The next time she saw him, she remembered how she had listed off his good points in her head and she had blushed. Shino had asked her, when she kept being distracted and turning red, if she was coming down with something. Sakura chose to follow his example and stay quiet about the matter. What had started out as a clever lie had taken on shades of the truth, and she wasn’t entirely sure she liked this development.

That brought them to the night of the dinner. Hinata was dressed very prettily and Naruto had even complimented her, in his own brash way just blurting out that she was cute. Sakura wasn’t dancing around inside of her head for joy at this major victory, but was rather focused on Shino who looked as cool and collected as he always did. His very maturity was starting to get on her nerves. They had been acting a lot like a couple, after all, particularly after Naruto had been let in on the fake secret. How could she be so affected and he feel nothing?

“S-sorry, Shino.” Hinata said quietly as she righted the tea pot before she got any more on the table. He just nodded his reassurance at her.

Naruto made a joke and Hinata laughed, her language more fluid now in response. She was just nervous because she had never hosted a party before. She had actually gotten used to Naruto already and they were fast friends. Hinata was more in love than ever and Naruto sometimes seemed like he might be smitten, but he himself was probably not aware that that was what he was feeling. Emotions were not something Naruto had been smart about, having buried many of his under a layer of determination not to be weak. Hinata would get through soon enough and Sakura knew he would love her fiercely back. She sighed, wistfully, since she wished she too had such prospects ahead of her.

“Is there something wrong?” Shino surprised her out of her internal world and back to the table where they were sitting, Naruto and Hinata talking still. Dinner was over, and Sakura just wanted to leave before she started to resent anybody in the room for any reason.

“No, I think I just have a little headache. I’m going home. Thank you for everything Hinata.” The hostess disengaged from Naruto and saw Sakura out with a hug and a heartfelt thank you. There was no way that Sakura would allow herself to resent Hinata for getting what she had wanted for so long. As for Sakura. . . she didn’t know what she wanted.

She was halfway home when she sensed someone coming up fast behind her. To her surprise, it was Shino, who told her that Naruto had practically pushed him out the door once Sakura was gone. He had only stayed long enough to be polite to Hinata.

“He’s been very pushy lately. I think he wanted some time to tell Hinata something. This may be the end of our plot.” The delivery was as kind and toneless as usual. Sakura wished he sounded just a little bit sad. “I’ll walk you home. It’s on the way.”

They turned corners and passed streets as Sakura thought. Even Naruto, now, would get hooked up. She, a perfectly attractive and interesting kunoichi of nineteen, was still single and pining stupidly after yet another boy who had the emotional responsiveness of a brick. Why couldn’t she fall for the Naruto-type? Someone gregarious and easily approached? It was a curse, it seemed. Spitefully, she let some of her frustration and anger surface.

“Even if he tells her tonight, who knows if it will go anywhere. Naruto doesn’t know anything about women, and Hinata isn’t aggressive enough to make a move.”

Shino hummed to show he had heard her but said nothing. Sakura felt egged on by his non response.

“Not that sex is everything, but I think in general most boys could do with a little bit of instruction.” She was getting careless since she was upset. “Why, you Shino, could have any girl you wanted. I could tell you how. They’d fall at your feet.”

This got more interest from the young Aburame. “Any girl I wanted?”

“Sure.” She felt confident but suddenly vulnerable. Was there someone he wanted? Why hadn’t she noticed it before?

“Then tell me.”

They were almost to her door. At once she wanted to balk and run off to the safety of her room to brood and eat some chocolate and then sleep. This night was already turning into a disaster from her point of view.

“Could you tell me now? It’s still early, and I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

The reference to how their adventure as matchmakers was over filled Sakura again with the dread that she had gotten involved in something that was just going to hurt her all over again. It didn’t get any easier, having feelings for men who might not return them, and she wished she hadn’t gotten herself in the position where she had to show Shino how to attract other women to him. She liked him like this, his own self. He didn’t need to change. With a sigh she opened the door and invited him in to her small but serviceable house. 

“Just have a seat, I’ve got chocolate in the cupboard if you’d like some.”

“Yes, please.” He made no noise as he moved into the living room area.

Sakura returned with the sweets and set them on the table. They chewed on this for a bit while Sakura schooled her thoughts. When she finally spoke, it was soft and kept entirely neutral even though his presence next to her on the couch was causing her heart to beat rather rapidly.

“First of all, the jacket. If you just wore something a little tighter then women could make out your form better. The coat is pretty big, you must admit, and it doesn’t really scream anything except that you seem to think every day is winter.”

“I can regulate my own body heat.”

“That isn’t the point. It’s an image issue, and tighter clothes are better to most girls.”

He nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. What do you think about tight clothes?”

“I don’t care either way. Now, the second issue is the way you conceal your face.” She smiled in memory. “Kakashi was always sought after because of his exotic eye, and his mask was very mysterious, but no one knows why you cover your eyes so completely or why you hide your face. It is more intimidating than mysterious so far as sex appeal goes.”

“Ah.”

“But don’t worry, I think the whole glasses thing isn’t a drawback. Though I do wish I could see your face maybe just once or twice. . .”

As she spoke he unzipped and unbuttoned his jacket all the way down exposing the mesh shirt that all ninjas layered under their clothes as well as a slightly smirking mouth with slightly thin lips. “You asked. . .” He shrugged in answer while Sakura stared at him in shock. “Anything else?”

Sakura tried not to stare at his body, uniformly toned like all ninjas, and extremely sexy to her but ever so much out of her reach. She wanted to tell him that it was inappropriate for him to do that, but she had said she wanted to see his face, and it was a very nice one. It wouldn’t do to complain.

“Your hair,” she finally managed to go on. “It sticks straight up. Maybe if you didn’t force it up with the headband then it wouldn’t look so brush-like. . . oh no don’t do that. I’m not saying you have to do this for me, I think your hair is just fine. This is all just theoretical advice. . .” She groaned as he went ahead and took off the headband anyway, and shrugged off his jacket as well. Why was he undressing in front of her? This was torture.

His hair, once he rustled it about with his hands a bit, still stood out from his head but without the headband pressuring it all together the spiky strands dipped down and lined his face creating rather adorable chaos around his head. Sakura wanted to dive her hands into it and squashed the urge violently as she reminded herself that he was asking her the best way to get other girls to notice him. Well, if he looked like this around other girls she just might jump him, kill them, or take back everything she said and try to convince him to hide away in corners for the rest of his life. . . with her. . . dark corners, so one could see it when she. . .

Bad Sakura! No letting the inner thoughts bleed into outer actions! No!

“And then?” If she didn’t know better, she’d think that Shino was laughing at her, but the slight smile didn’t say anything when she couldn’t see his eyes. It was better this way, she wouldn’t feel hurt this way. Her pain wasn’t very funny to her.

Sakura stood up from the couch and left the room, coming back shortly after with a wet hand towel. “You always have dirt on your face,” She said softly and then placed a hand on his shoulder as she cleaned off the darkened marks on his face and then his hands. “I guess it’s because of the insects.” The only reason she mentioned them was to remind herself that she didn’t want this, him, and that there were reasons to resist. It just wouldn’t work in the long run.

There she sat on the couch, one of his hands still on hers as she ran the wet cloth over it to get the last of the dirt. She tried not to feel bad for herself, to feel undesirable and rejected, but it was hard. 

“Anything else?” His voice was low, the smile gone.

Sakura tried not to let her voice catch on the emotion in her throat. “Just remember, be assertive and take initiative. Girls like it when you make the first move, and it doesn’t hurt to be bold. Confidence is very—” Her words were forgotten as Shino pulled her face towards his and kissed her. It was very straightforward. No sloppiness, no hesitation, just a pleasant and somewhat chaste kiss on her lips.

They broke apart and Sakura spent a moment in stunned and giddy joy.

Which quickly moved to anger.

“What the hell was that? Look, if you’re just playing around with me then you can—”

“I’m not playing.” Shino said quickly.

Sakura tossed the wet towel across the room in a fit of temper and then crossed her arms over her chest. “Then tell me what that was.”

“Well,” Shino thought for a moment and Sakura silently waited for his usual thoughtful words to this urgent question. “You said that you could show me how I could get any girl I wanted.”

The implications of this took a moment to sink in because although Sakura was intelligent, there were some ways in which she was very dumb. Her eyes went wide. “Oh.” A slow, seductive smile spread over her face. “Ohhh.”

“Now, if you don’t mind, I will get back to that last piece of advice.” He reached for her again and Sakura leaned into him willingly. Their lips met and once she seemed to relax into him he opened up his mouth and encouraged her to do the same by probing at kiss bruised lips with his tongue.

They pulled away, chests heaving as if they had been running hard, and Shino began to move down her neck with his mouth even as Sakura ran her hands over his body. The mesh snagged on her nails and she made a frustrated chirp as she pulled back one hand. Shino responded by stripping this layer off, revealing glorious skin for Sakura to touch. She was so pleased by him that she pushed him back onto the couch and straddled him just so she could have an eagle’s eye view of his half-naked body. Her fingers caressed and tweaked as Shino lay there passively, allowing her to take any liberty she wished while still watching her from behind those glasses.

When he could take it no longer he began to pull up Sakura’s shirt and she obliged him readily when she realized through a hazy mind what he was trying to do. Her shirt and mesh undershirt were on the floor next to his in a flash and then skin met skin as she folded down onto him to reach his mouth again.

“Sakura,” Shino groaned as she continued to explore his chest but this time with her mouth instead of her hands. “Are you sure you want this? I can’t take much more.”

As usual she took his meaning the wrong way because of his abbreviated speech patterns. She withdrew, blush spreading over her body, and reached down next to them for her shirt. “It’s ok. I went too fast for you. I’m sorry. . .”

“No,” he stopped her questing arm and brought it back up. “I’m saying I can’t hold back much more. But if I let go, then I want to know how far you want to take this.”

“Hmmm.” She had been waiting for an opportunity like this. Her hormones were screaming at her to do something. In the end she ended up acting on one of those inner voices she usually quashed. Reaching down between them, she cupped him through his pants and felt for herself how full and hard he was. “I know what can happen.” She gave him a light squeeze through the fabric and Shino gave another one of those delicious moans.

“Is that permission?” Shino said through clenched teeth.

“Yes.” She said and then yelped as Shino jerked up with more strength than she had ever credited him with and practically ran to her bedroom. There was no time for her to ask how he knew where to go, though she had had parties at her house which he had attended so maybe he had seen it then. Unceremoniously, she was dumped upon the bed and was quickly covered up by a lot of focused, lustful, muscular male.

Inside of her head everything seemed to be spinning. Everything was overloading from far too much sensation, and all from a man who she had dismissed as being all cold disinterest. What a surprise Shino was, and what a surprise he continued to be as his tongue circled around her nipple with such precise care. His movements were calculated, slow, as if he wanted to take all the time in the world to savor her and make her writhe beneath him.

When his hands instead covered where his mouth had been, Sakura got her bearings and reached out to run her nails over his skin lightly. He shivered and caught her hand in his own. Riveted, she watched him force her hand over his body. Shino pressed her fingers into his muscles hard and at first her hand dragged slowly over his skin until she reached his belly where a slick of sweat slid her small hand and his together to the top of his trousers. There he let go, and she looked up from where her hand rested to his face where his lips parted just enough to allow his shallow pants.

She had told him to be assertive, hadn’t she? Slightly unsure, but too caught up in her own heated moment Sakura turned her attention back to where her hands were fumbling with the ties of his trousers. Once she had undone them she reached inside to draw him out to her view. She couldn’t help but stare as her hand slid up and down that column of flesh, memorizing its feel and glorying in the power she held over him with every stroke. Shino stopped her again, and forced her to move as he tore off the rest of her clothes as quickly as possible.

Rather than just leap into the act as she had half expected him to do, again he slowed and became deliberate with his touches. He would stop her wandering hands and force them back to her sides every time she attempted to return to his wonderfully erect member just at the corner of her vision. Instead, with a strange sense of voyeurism she watched him move his hands over her legs, curving over the calf and tracing the outside of the thigh before dipping behind the knees and then scraping past the inner thigh. It felt like he was burning a path over her, and when he just brushed her outer lips she hissed out a curse for the wanton way her legs parted.

There was that hesitation again. If he had just been doing what he felt up until now, it had been brilliant, but if was as truly inexperienced as she suspected then he might need some guidance. Her thought was followed by a smirk. It was her guidance that had started this whole experience. Now it was her time to take his hand and show him the motions that would please her the most. He looked to her face and to her slight vocalizations of pleasure to tell him what he continued to do right once her hand left his own. Before long she knew that he was going to make her climax and as much as she wanted and needed that feeling, she wanted to be as selfless as he had been in this shared exploration of their bodies.

It didn’t take much urging to get him to position himself properly between her legs and as they pushed together she clenched at the pain from the stretching before she forced herself to take a deep breath and relax. Shino waited for the cue from her to start moving, and once her hips wiggled a bit and they separated and came together again she wondered at how slick she must be for the motion to work so fluidly. For two athletic bodies like theirs this activity began to take on the aspect of an endurance trial as the first tried to surpass the other in control. In an unexpected twist, Shino brought a hand in between them and touched her where she had instructed him to previously and it drew her over the edge, moaning his name and shuddering beneath him while he continued a steady pace. Sakura twitched a little as he moved inside of her for a few more strokes before finding his own release, and she had the pleasure of watching him bite his lip and shudder in ecstasy before he collapsed onto her.

Shino rolled off of her, disconnecting them, and both he and Sakura stared at the ceiling as if it held any new insights as to why and how this had happened to them. They were still only half on the bed and they stationed themselves in the middle of the small mattress. Sakura tried not to blush when his arm was thrown over her chest as they both spread out their bodies to cool off and dry the sweat they were covered in.

“You didn’t take off your glasses.” Sakura said. Coherent thoughts that were reasoned and intelligent were still a little beyond her after that energetic workout.

Shino smiled as he sat up and leaned over her to give her a kiss. “No I didn’t.”

“Will I ever get to see your eyes?”

“Maybe.”

Sakura didn’t really feel like talking, but too much was colliding around in her brain for her to not think about it.

“Was this a fluke?” Now she sat up, scooting back to the headboard as she gathered her wits. “Because this meant something to me. And I just need to know it means something to you too. . . please.” She was a strong girl, but her world had flipped in the course of a little over an hour.

In typical Shino fashion, he was silent for a long time before he spoke. Sakura respected the way he planned everything from him words to his life, the long pauses for thought punctuated by sometimes almost frantic activity, but it was truly maddening to have to wait. Even if this same process caused her anticipatory agony and bliss in turns when he was touching her, this had far more potential to hurt her. He sighed a little before he spoke.

“You were always so interesting to watch,” That wasn’t a good way to begin, from her point of view, but she hoped it would get better. “Your face contorts sometimes when you think no one is watching you. Whole conversations in body language would happen and in the blink of an eye you could be among other people just having a good time and looking like there wasn’t another thought in your head.” As usual his wording was imperfect. “Hinata provided me a convenient excuse, but don’t get me wrong Sakura, I have been waiting for the right moment for a very long time.”

There was confusion in her voice now, though her alarm had been assuaged by his words thus far. “Then what made things different tonight? I have been trying to treat you like I always did. . . mainly because I didn’t want you to suspect anything.”

“You did a very good job too. I thought my chances were just as hopeless as they’d always been. . . until Naruto came and threatened to hurt me if I made you cry. It didn’t take long to get him to tell me all about your infatuation.”

Sakura screwed up her face into a grimacing smile. “That Naruto, ever so helpful and subtle. . . but the whole thing was a ruse in the beginning. How could that have changed anything?”

“I told you. . . body language. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I would have missed it. You found little ways to touch me, to move closer. . . well. . . that and. . .” Shino faltered and stopped talking.

“What?”

He coughed. “Pheromones. You’re positively drenched in them. I know how it works, I just bided my time until. . .”

“You seduced me!” Sakura exclaimed with some consternation. “You seduced me while I was telling you how to seduce women! You jerk!” She hit him with the pillow behind her back and then screamed when Shino rolled over onto her and held down her arms. Then he began to do lovely things to her neck with his lips and teeth and soon Sakura was purring again. “That’s not fair.” 

Shino just laughed to himself and laid his glasses on the small table by the lamp. With undivided interest, Sakura watched his face, but he didn’t open his eyes as he lay down and reached out for her.

“I thought you didn’t take them off.” She said in a monotone.

“I don’t.” Shino said, arms still held out. “Only when I sleep.”

In her heart, Sakura was insanely pleased that he wanted to sleep over after all this. “If we’re going to sleep I think I’ll get a quick shower first.” Shino simply grabbed her and pulled her down to him, ignoring her struggles and protests.

“You don’t need a shower.”

“Yes I do, I’m covered in sweat and I probably smell—”

“Fine, you smell fine. Besides, in a few hours it won’t matter if you shower or not.”

Sakura fidgeted as she tried to get comfortable sharing the bed with Shino, legs tangled and bodies pressed hotly to one another. “Why won’t it. . .oh. . . mmmm” The tickling caress he gave her inner thigh told her exactly why the shower would be a waste of water. “Well then, we’ll just take one later won’t we?”

“We?”

Now it was Sakura’s turn to laugh in sinister glee.


	6. NejiSaku

Sakura idly wondered how it came to this.

Her body, sweating despite the frigid winter chill in the room, exposed, with long tendrils of dark hair caressing her breasts. She arched her back as he entered her again, a soft hiss of satisfaction followed by a puff of breath she could see in the air. He opened his eyes and looked down at her, his hair continuing to sway and tickle her skin.

If his eyes had been dark, she could have had the illusion that they smoldered with desire for her, or she could have told herself she saw a spark of feeling in him when they did this. . . but all that Sakura encountered was the blank, intimidating Hyuuga stare. It could have been all iris or all pupil, for all she knew, and she didn’t question how it worked lest she actually discovered the clan secret and therefore consign herself to a quick death from the secretive Konoha clan.

Whatever could Neji be looking at, she wondered, since he could see anything he wanted to without seeing. Why bore into her with those pale eyes of his, examining her flushed face and parted lips, when she had been in this position many times before and he hadn’t seemed particularly interested in looking.

This was a matter of convenience for them both, after all, and she wrapped her long legs around him, locking them at the ankle and pulling him deeper into her to remind him of his task. That smirk of his lit up his features, making them sexy in their cocky confidence. He knew she wanted satisfaction, and from experience he knew he could go as long as she could, loving it when she was at her most demanding. Even tired after coming back from a mission he had never failed her.

He bent his head down as he propped himself up on his elbows and picked up the pace of his thrusts. Sakura bit down on her lip hard, she knew they couldn’t make any noise, but her brain had a hard time convincing her vocal chords. That impossibly silky hair of his slithered over her body, sticking to particularly sweaty patches, and just begging for her to put her hands in it. She had earlier, grasping it tightly in both fists and stifling the moans in her throat when he had teased his tongue over the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. After a slightly annoyed tug, he had gotten the idea that such a taunting sensation was not what she was in the mood for.

There would be time for leisure later, tonight was special because it had been two weeks since Neji had left to go on a mission with Tenten and Lee, and that was longer than the two of them had been apart since their trysts began in earnest six months ago. He wanted to make up for lost time, it seemed, unwilling to be on the receiving end of the pleasure and entirely devoted to making Sakura squirm and writhe beneath him. The way that every action seemed to be deliberate made her think that he had been thinking about her, planning exactly what he was going to do to her when he got back.

That, that thought, unlike his eyes or his few words, were what made Sakura’s body tingle tonight with something beyond just the lust that had gravitated her to the Hyuuga genius half a year ago. That he missed her, even in this small way, made her feel special to him. For that feeling she would bite through her lip rather than let his clan hear even a peep of sound from his rooms. 

It was supposed to just be for their mutual convenience.

It would only be her own fault if she got hurt in all this.

*  
*  
*

It was the middle of summer, and Sakura wished she were anywhere but in a stuffy room looking at scrolls with a few other medic-nin students. Among them, the only one Sakura wanted to get the attention of was Hinata. The girl had been in particularly poor spirits recently, with Naruto having been turned down by her father as a potential suitor. . . for the fifth time. The boy was persistent, Sakura had to give him that. He was also banned from speaking to Hinata in any way, and had a restraining order slapped on him not to even come within a hundred feet of her.

But no one ever said that Sakura couldn’t talk to Hinata, and so she was trying to find the least obvious way to do that. The romance of the situation appealed to her, and she was willing to do just about everything for her loud blond friend. He was like a brother to her, and if Hinata was what he wanted second only to his desire to be Hokage, then Sakura would play the part of go-between for them.

Ripping off an end to the scroll in the reading room, as all the ninjas prepared for yet another grueling test of their skills, Sakura scribbled a note and made an impeccable shot to get it to land right in front of Hinata. Suddenly, the wide eyed Hyuuga heir looked up and picked at the paper in wonder, twisting her head about to try to locate its source. Sakura gave a small wave and the other girl’s brow knit in confusion.

Finally, after reading the note, she nodded and held up three fingers. Sakura nodded back. A meeting at three o’clock would be fine with her. She knew this material by heart already, as dedicated as she was to always improving her knowledge, and in fact she didn’t have any more tests that the Godaime could throw at her besides field tests. Missions had become sparser for Sakura once more medic-nins had been trained.

‘Out front.’ Sakura mouthed, and Hinata nodded. With nothing else left to say, Sakura used the rest of her time to study the seal order of a particularly long illusionary technique. Anything to buy time to heal people on the battlefield.

Three o’clock came faster than she expected, and Hinata was waiting for her out front, having finished her own studying previously. The sun beat down on them and Sakura suggested that they walk and talk, just to get some air moving over their bodies.

“A certain loud idiot said to tell me he loves you and he’s working on things. Also that you’re not to worry.” Sakura rubbed sweaty palms on her short skirt and tried to think of cool things, like ice cream and snow. It didn’t make it any less like an oven out today.

“Does. . . does, he have a plan?”

Sakura looked at Hinata, her hands folded together in worry, and decided honesty was the best policy. “Knowing Naruto? No. But he’ll probably come up with something at the last minute anyway.”

“Y-yes.” Hinata had a mixture of unsure emotions flitting across her face, and she looked kindly up at Sakura. “Please, come over and have a cool drink. You can tell me how he’s doing. It’s been a while since. . . the restraining order.”

It was a hot day. . . and what could it hurt? The more familiar she seemed to be with Hinata, the less suspicion she would be under when she was relaying message between them. “Thank you, I think I’ll take you up on that.”

*  
*  
*

Sakura wished she had kept her mouth shut when she got to the Hyuuga compound. It was vast to say the least, and she was sauntering on into this place where the strongest clan in Konoha resided with its heir by her side. She didn’t feel a sense of importance so much as being incredibly outnumbered. As another skilled hand to hand fighter, Sakura saw the Hyuuga power and its ability to shut her down, as a major threat.

_Good thing they’re on our side._ Her mind tried to reassure her. It mildly worked to soothe her edgy feelings.

Hinata led them through and a few people greeted her formally as they went to what Sakura had to assume were Hinata’s private quarters. It put Sakura’s tiny apartment to shame, certainly, but she didn’t feel envious of the space that the other girl enjoyed. Hinata had space, but Sakura had freedom. No clan relied on Sakura to lead them to a strong and prosperous future. How would this fragile girl fare when she had to be the one to take over? It was a question for another time.

“I’ll be right back. There should be something I can find for us in the kitchens.” Hinata was flushed from the heat and the pleasure of actually having company that wasn’t going to be thrown out by her overprotective family. The star pupil of the Hokage was welcome most places, and Sakura was glad for that small bit of prestige.

Once Hinata left, Sakura picked up the sounds of grunts and the distinctive smack of metal against wood. Someone was training. Curious, Sakura opened up the sliding door that led to the courtyard area in this part of the Hyuuga compound and had to catch her breath and force her heart beat to slow down at the sight.

Neji, practicing various moves and techniques, was shirtless and glistening in the late afternoon heat. The medic in her wanted to stop him and admonish him for exerting himself in the hottest time of the day when he might easily become dehydrated. The rest of her was telling that medic part to shut the hell up and continue staring at him. . . but that closing her mouth might be a good idea.

When had he started to look that. . . that. . . _sexy_? The base portion of her mind supplied.

Shush you, she scolded. He’s. . . not for me. He’s not for anyone. Just another emotionally stunted genius with a beautiful face and a beautiful chest and a beautiful behin. . . 

In this heat she couldn’t keep her thoughts separated enough. Didn’t Hinata have a fan somewhere in here? A quick scan of the room behind her told her no and she gladly turned back to, well, oogle Neji when she was confronted with unforgiving blank eyes. She had been spotted and he was walking this way.

_Shirtless!_ Her brain piped up without asking.

“What are you doing here? Is there something wrong with Hinata?” Naturally, seeing a medic nin where no medic nin should be forced Neji to come to the worst conclusion.

Sakura forced her mouth to work even if her brain was trying to desert her with Neji this close and practically glistening. He looked good enough to eat. She stopped that thought before it got much further. “This is a purely social visit.”

“I see.” He continued to stare at her, and Sakura shifted under his gaze. She was already too warm as it was and this wasn’t helping.

“That means you can go back to your training, though you should really wait until it cools down to. . .”

“I don’t need your advice.” He interrupted her and narrowed his eyes.

The challenge to her authority riled her up, pushing past her attraction and straight to that tight core of anger she always had waiting just below the surface. “Who’s the medic here? I say you need to rest, so you’re going to damn well rest if I have to make you!”

“You should listen to Sakura, she is the strongest medic in the village besides Tsunade.” Hinata had entered, a smile on her face lighting up her features when she saw Neji. Ever since Neji had reconciled himself with his past, their relationship had become more cordial, although it wasn’t exactly warm on his side. At least Hinata was no longer afraid of him.

“If you say so.” Neji said, bowing to Hinata’s suggestion as if it had been an order. Maybe it was an order and Sakura just didn’t understand the dynamic of the Hyuuga clan.

Hinata looked pleased and with a nod turned back after setting down a tray. “I’ll go get another glass.” Sakura wanted to stop her, but she had no other reason than ‘don’t leave me alone with your attractive cousin because I might jump on him!’ That didn’t seem like a good reason to give with his irritated feelings coming off of him in waves right behind her.

“Get out of the way, I need to come inside, apparently.” Neji didn’t look happy.

“It’s for the best. Your body will thank you.” She tried to shove aside her own feelings of irritation and not rise to the occasion against him. A battle was not what she came for.

Neji sat down, the sweat on his body already drying now that he was shaded indoors. “You should stay out of our business.”

“Pardon?”

“Whatever it is you’re planning to do for that Uzumaki. . . it’s just going to hurt Hinata. It’s useless.”

Sakura didn’t like his tone. She didn’t like his words either, but his tone jolted right to her baser instincts to fight. . . and something else. “You of all people should know that we create our own futures.”

“You presume to lecture me about fate?” He looked amused by this. “I thought you were supposed to be intelligent.”

“And I thought you were supposed to be less of a jerk.”

He stood and stalked over to where she still leaned against the wall by the door and towered over her to intimidate her. She stared back at him defiantly. “I could break you. Get out of here before you make things more complicated around here than they already are.”

“I don’t respond well to threats.”

“It’s a promise.” His breathing changed suddenly and his eyebrows twitched down. “. . . not a threat.”

Sakura’s whole body felt charged as her emotions flickered between anger and desire. Neji was unreadable, but he hadn’t backed away and in fact leaned forward a fraction before he swayed back and made a frustrated grunt under his breath. Despite the heat, Sakura shivered.

Hinata entered the room before Sakura had collected her wits enough to form a response. The three of them made strained conversation until Sakura gave an excuse and left before Hinata could get any more information from her. Neji wasn’t about to leave them alone that day.

Or the next day she came.

Or the next.

Sakura was getting apprehensive about these meetings. Every time Hinata left to get refreshments, Neji would try to convince Sakura to give up. He hadn’t come as close to her as he had that first time, but there was some feeling there, something that made them pant a little when they spoke animatedly to one another. 

On the fourth day, Hinata met Sakura almost secretly but Neji managed to barge in on them an hour after they began to talk and dragged Sakura away by an arm before Hinata could stop him. He sternly told Hinata to wait while he had a chat with the pink haired kunoichi, and Sakura told the shy girl things would be fine. She wished she had been as sure of that as she seemed to be.

He dragged her to an empty room nearby, the heat of the day around them in waves, and pushed her against a wall, one hand on her shoulder with his mouth poised to begin a lecture on knowing her place.

But instead of pouring out familiar and repugnant words, those lips of his crushed down on hers, and Sakura was lost, her hands already slipping under his shirt. The need between them had become too great, and in a tangled, angry heap they had had sex for the first time. Being angry had almost made it better, Sakura thought after it was over, because his forcefulness drove her over the edge so quickly. He had clutched at her, his fingers digging into her muscles, and his mouth working over her skin salty with sweat. 

After it was over they didn’t say anything to one another, the simply dressed and parted ways. Sakura went back to talk to Hinata, and they had finished speaking to one another even though Sakura’s mind was no longer on Hinata and Naruto’s problems. She had her own issue now to deal with.

The visits with Hinata didn’t stop, and neither did the sex with Neji. They rarely spoke to one another afterwards. It was when the mess with Hinata and Naruto finally did get cleared up. . . by their elopement. . . that Neji and Sakura had to take other measures to satisfy their need for one another that their bodies hadn’t been able to extinguish yet despite the wishes of either party.

Sakura would sneak into the compound at least one night in three, since Neji’s presence would be missed if he had left to go to her apartment. They had set the ground rules fast enough. No noise, little to no talking, and no accountability. What they did and said in one another’s presence stayed between them. Sakura was pretty sure no one knew, and those who suspected knew better than to let on that they did in front of the Hyuuga genius in particular.

Months of this made them familiar and comfortable with one another’s bodies, but Sakura always wondered at him, a little. The hard planes of his body, the harsh expression on his face that only relieved itself when he was giving or receiving pleasure, and always those almost disturbing eyes, they were all things that were emblazoned into her mind and the memory of her fingers.

He wasn’t a selfish lover. That surprised her at first. He loved to watch her when she was moving against him, and particularly loved that one time when she touched herself for him to show him what she liked. Neji had practically leapt on her that time, all sleek muscles and feline grace. He was beautiful, but Sakura couldn’t really say that Neji was hers.

She had only come close to breaking things off once, in the middle of November, when he had been lying next to her with his arm wrapped around her middle and said in a flat voice that she shouldn’t expect this to go anywhere. His bride would be chosen someday from among the distant Hyuuga relations, someone to strengthen their bloodline, and then this would have to end. Sakura had angrily got up and only habit kept her from yelling at him.

“I know it’s just sex. You didn’t have to be an ass about it like that.”

She had fumed and spat and thought seriously about telling Ino about her liaison with Neji Hyuuga just so she could have someone to complain to about what a jerk he was. Naruto was still in newlywed bliss and wouldn’t have understood at all, in fact he would have been more likely to attack Neji for daring to use his Sakura like that. Nevermind the fact that she was using Neji too.

Once she had calmed down, she realized that that’s what upset her the most. It wasn’t a relationship, it was, as she had said ‘just sex’. And yet it wasn’t. They had intimate moments that tugged at her heartstrings. Sometimes Neji would mention something about his past, or a vague uncertainty about how a mission went. It was rare, a once a month kind of thing, but they had happened. It had been the day after one of those telling moments of emotional exposure that he had said what he said about his future wife. He didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. . . to get attached.

But it wasn’t Sakura who broke the stony barrier of anger that lasted a week between them. Neji came to her apartment with, well, not an apology, but certainly with a sense of remorse and an early Christmas present. The scroll was expensive, uncommon, and explained a technique for obscuring yourself in your surroundings that would make sneaking around easier in the dense forests around Konoha. It was a good gift, and they ate dinner together that night in her apartment. They didn’t have sex until the next morning, early, before he left to sneak back to his rooms in the Hyuuga compound. It had been oddly comforting to sleep, just sleep, with him for almost a whole night. Not that she would let him know that.

*  
*  
*

Here it was, January, and it seemed like her heart was growing as cold as the weather. Their bodies were sliding against one another, his filling her with that delicious friction that made her ache with pleasure. Neji’s elbows were shaking, and he slowed down a little as he eased himself down to press his chest against hers. His tongue swept over her neck, then his teeth nipped at the taut muscle. 

She surged up to meet him, needy, close to completion, and said his name on an indrawn breath. It sounded broken, a gasp more than a word, but he heard it and gave an answering moan as he pushed into her again and felt her climax around him. Only after he was sure of her satisfaction did he allow himself a last sure thrust into her sensitive opening to finish himself off. She held him until he stopped shuddering on top of her, and she tried to run her hands over his back in a reassuring manner, lightly skipping her blunt nails over those sleek back muscles.

Sakura often found it strange that he more often took the time to look her over, to feel her body carefully, after they had finished. Again this time, when he rolled to the side, she felt the blankets be pulled around them and his hands making a trail over her body. Over her nipples, peaks that rose to his light caress, down her stomach and past her curls to her thighs and then back up over her hips only to jump to her hands and arms. Across her collarbone, stopping to swirl down to her clavicle and then up to her chin, over her lips. He held her chin and gave her a soft kiss before lying back down beside her.

She tried not to tremble. This was the worst part, when he was doing these intimate things as if he cared for her. Convenience. She reminded herself, as if the word would provide her any comfort or make her feel less attached.

“I missed you.” He said, almost haltingly, as if he regretted the words as soon as he said them. Sakura’s body had frozen at his confession. She wasn’t sure if she should answer and instead wrapped her arms around his body. He grunted, pulling her in even closer, those wiry arms of his stronger than anyone would suspect. His hair was everywhere around them, and Sakura blew at it gently with a lingering smile on her face.

Their peace, her sleepy moment of heaven, was broken when she looked at the clock by his bed. She hated those numbers, wished they could turn back the clock another hour or two and give her time to bask in a stolen moment of emotional and physical fulfillment.

“Where are you going?” he asked gruffly, using that tone he knew she hated being addressed with.

“Look at the time.”

She struggled up, but he continued to hold her down. “I’ve seen it.” He hadn’t even so much as turned his head away from her. “Stay.” He commanded, but more gently.

“What about. . .?”

“Later. Right now I’m too tired to think about it. Sleep.” The preemptory tone, that haughty security in his own actions, those half closed eyes she found so unreadable.

It was a good thing he didn’t say anything else because if that catch in the back of her throat was any indication, she might have started to tear up a little. Not much, but he was observant and his blind spot was behind him, after all, not in front.

He had never asked her to stay before. It was tantamount to telling everyone about them when she left the next morning. The trouble it would cause should have worried her, but she trusted Neji. Even if it wasn’t wise, and even if she was putting her reputation on the line, she trusted him. The problems couldn’t be that insurmountable to date a Hyuuga. Naruto had already succeeded, after all.

As Neji pulled Sakura into him, warming her with his still nude body, Sakura thought that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that she cared for this man. Tomorrow was going to be an interesting day.


	7. ShinoSaku 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2006 Note: This was a gift for KuroOkami who said she’d draw me Shino/Saku if I wrote some more for them. 
> 
> (2019 Note: which I never got! Also I'm a sucker for bribes as it turns out, because this has happened to me before)

“It isn’t that I dislike you. . . it’s. . .” Sakura was tongue tied and she attempted to find the right word to express the sentiments she had been keeping in check for the last few days. “You seemed to be so creepy. . .” She bit her lip and tried not to think about how the man in front of her had taken this news. His face was impassive.

“I see.” Those eyes she had so longed to see turned from her as he contemplated the window across the room. “I troubled you. It won’t happen again.”

Other people might have mistaken his reaction for something along the lines of uncaring, but Sakura had a feeling that this obscure retreat was born of hurt. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but then she was a little afraid of the thoughts that meandered through her head about him in general but about them together in specific.

“Shino. . .”

“Please, if you are uncomfortable then you do not have to feel obligated to stay here.” That was as close as she had ever heard him get to anger, in this brief span of time they had spent in this little inn on the edge of a Wave country fishing village. It was almost a week now, since the mission was put on hiatus for them. It wasn’t something either of them could help.

“No.” Sakura said, making up her mind to see this through. “I said ‘seemed’, past tense, and now I think that you’re. . . analytical.”

His reaction actually surprised her. “I fail to see how that is better, in this situation.” Shino reached a hand up, from where it had lain by his side, and ran his fingers through Sakura’s dangling hair while she continued to sit on the side of the bed. “Unless you wish to be analyzed.”

“Give it a try. I’ll tell you what I think afterwards.” Her heartbeat resounded in her ears.

“Remember that you asked for it.” Shino said as he sat up more and leaned back against the headboard. Those disturbing pupil-less black eyes, dark holes she was sinking into, leveled on her.

Sakura gave a nervous swallow and thought to herself that if this ruined everything then it was all her fault. She could have walked away from all of this tomorrow, and no one would have been the wiser. Tsunade had often warned her about how emotionally involving it got taking care of people as patients, but Sakura wondered if that was all this was or if this pull held the hint of something more. Up until now they were both victims of circumstance.

When Sakura had been sent with Shino on a ‘diplomatic’ mission to the Wave country, she had been displeased and a little bit more than uneasy. Aburame Shino was one of the least social, least predictable, and least controllable ninjas on any team unless the team leader was highly skilled and respected. After a while, Tsunade had gotten fed up with his tendency not to work well with teams and instead assigned him on missions alone or with one other person at most. Sakura was the winner of that honor for the mission that took them to Wave country lands. It was her punishment for not listening to Tsunade and skipping out on training to go to a party that Ino had invited her to. She was only eighteen, there was no reason to use all that time for training.

That was an excuse of course. She hadn’t gone to a party, nothing of the kind. It had been the anniversary of. . . of the first chuunin exam she had been in. It was a special day to her, and she had wanted some time alone. Well, now she had gotten a lot of it.

It galled her that while she could save people’s lives, heal near fatal wounds, cleanse systems of poison, and even perform some rudimentary counseling, she still couldn’t do anything against the common cold. A virus was a virus and it had to run its course. They had traveled in the middle of a monsoon to get to the Wave country, and the constant downpour had gotten to Shino who had never taken off his wet coat once. When he started sneezing, she hadn’t thought too much of it, but the sniffling tipped her off. A ninja couldn’t be making that much noise, it would ruin the furtive nature of their mission. 

Sakura had insisted they stop. Shino protested. She began to list reasons why they should stop. Shino dropped unconscious with a fever before she could finish her speech. It was lucky that she found this village, and that they seemed genuinely concerned about them and excited to have visitors in general.

When Shino had been passed out and supported on her back, his long legs dragging behind her on the ground, she had had nothing better on her mind than getting him to someplace warm and dry. When they were in a room alone together and she had to remove his clothes and attend to his insensibly feverish body, she had felt more uncomfortable. Ever since the matches in the chuunin exam, she had been wary of the bug wielding ninja. Swallowing the bile in her throat, she made herself touch him and take care of him and forget about the crawling terror just below his skin. 

It was only a few hours before he awoke and Sakura saw his onyx eyes for the first time. They trained on her, at first unseeing, and then focusing in with a sharpness that made her want to back away.

“What happened?” He asked.

“You passed out. We’re at an inn. No one suspects anything. They assume we’re traveling to visit relatives. I’m a cousin of yours.” Sakura smirked. “Pretty distant cousin.”

Shino cocked his head to the side. “This is unnecessary. I can travel.”

“Oh no you don’t. I wouldn’t be any kind of medic if I let you go back out there into the rain like this. You push yourself too hard. . .”

“Better than not pushing myself hard enough.” From the tone of his voice she wasn’t sure if this was a comment directed at her to scold her, or if it was a simple factual statement from his perspective. Shino’s flat delivery left things open for question.

Sakura consciously decided to not take that as an insult. “I’ll go get us some food. You rest. Your clothes are being washed, so don’t even think about getting up and trying to do anything.”

With more than a little amusement swiftly followed by a bit of embarrassment she saw him glance down at his clothes and then look to her with wide eyes. 

“Don’t worry, I’m a medic.” Color high on her cheeks, she strode purposefully out of the room and let the man deal with his consternation at having been undressed by a woman he barely knew fade.

That evening passed surprisingly pleasantly, with Sakura and Shino going over maps and scrolls of jutsus, hearing the rain pound on the windows as the monsoon raged on. Sakura sometimes looked up with a question about the path they were taking or what information should be included in the reports. Shino would thoughtfully take his time and answer before going back to his own work. Not once did he seem impatient with her questions, or annoyed at some of her random comments. It seemed like he was actually listening to her when she talked, and Sakura appreciated his company. That first night had been nice enough.

When Shino had obviously not broken his temperature the next day, Sakura continued to insist that they stay. Shino didn’t say anything this time to scold her and her lax approach to the timeframe of the mission. A night of tossing and turning with feverish pain had mellowed his severe attitude, it seemed.

Sakura had a book in her backpack and she read, while Shino seemed content to lay in bed, arms crossed, thinking to himself. Eventually, Sakura couldn’t take it anymore and after lunch spent the rest of the day talking to people around the village. It wasn’t part of the information gathering she needed to do for the mission, but it was nice to get out and have a conversation that consisted of more than a few sentences exchanged back and forth.

Thinking that he might be bored, alone and sick in their room, Sakura returned for an early dinner and tried to tell Shino about the things she had heard from the villagers that day while they ate. He listened to her, eyes only leaving her lips to examine what he was putting into his mouth.

“. . . and then that old lady, Akemi, she said that her neighbor’s son had been sneaking out at night and no one quite knows what he’s up to. She thought he was sneaking out to go to the bar a few miles away, but no one can prove it and. . .”

“He’s not going to the bar.” Shino chewed on some rice slowly. 

Sakura halted, her flow of words interrupted. “Excuse me?”

He finished his bite of food leisurely before he answered. “He sneaks out to go see a girl in the north. If he was the one to leave last night, that is.”

“How do you know?”

A black insect flew past her line of sight and fluttered its wings after alighting on his hand before taking off again. “I just know.” Shino didn’t look at her, and Sakura stifled the sudden surge of discomfort at this reminder of the Aburuame’s uncanny bond to his bugs. It wasn’t the disgust she had felt before, for she had seen his skin and there hadn’t been a trace of movement beneath when she had changed his clothes the other day. If they were there, they weren’t noticeable and it was hard to dehumanize this man who she had existed so companionably with in close quarters.

“I’m impressed.” She forced herself to say, adding on a smile. Shino’s eyebrows rose as those ebony eyes drank her in. There was a trace of a responding smile on his lips, and Sakura felt a glow inside that she had been able to bring this mostly expressionless young man some happiness. He must feel so stifled in this room.

A third and fourth day passed. Oddly, his temperature refused to go down, and in fact raised up a degree. Sakura stayed with Shino the entire fifth day to monitor him, getting cool wet cloths to press against his head to ease the burning. To keep him focused and out of the pain he must have been in, she asked him questions. When he paused for too long, not seeming to be able to answer, she would tell him stories about her training in Konoha and anything else that came to mind.

“. . . and my parents said they might just pick up and go on a sightseeing tour for a while when my dad retires in another year. They’ve always had a kind of boring life, I suppose, and they never really got why I wanted to be a ninja so badly, but. . . but this can’t possibly be interesting to you. I’m sorry.” She mopped at his forehead lightly and smiled to herself in a way that implied that she found herself funny.

Shino moved one overheated hand onto her own, and she allowed him to grasp her without recoiling. Her expression was soft with self mockery and lingering concern for his condition.

“I like it when you speak too much.” She narrowed her eyes a bit, sensitive to the criticism of others even if she was all too willing to heap it onto herself. But he hadn’t meant it badly, she thought, and allowed herself to drown in his eyes again. He didn’t tend to blink very often, and he didn’t have the uncomfortable fidget of someone who was being stared at directly. It probably was a tendency developed from wearing sunglasses all the time. If someone couldn’t see your eyes then you could stare at them all you wished and they would never know. Really, she would have to think more about what sort of advantages they could afford from an interrogational point of view. Not that she wanted to be in that kind of line of work, but if Shino didn’t work well with others then maybe that was more up his alley. Ibiki could always use new talent. . .

“What are you thinking about?” Sakura had stood, after her long pause, intending to refill the bowl she had been using for the cloth with fresh water from the sink down the hall in the bathroom.

She felt a jolt, suddenly, looking at him from across the room. Strong muscles, pale skin, dark eyes and hair (a personal preference she had always had a weakness for), and a gaze of such steady confidence it was absolutely penetrating. When had Shino become. . . attractive?

To quote Shikamaru. . . this was troublesome.

Her hands shook as she carried the water back. With this on her mind, reverberating throughout as if someone had hallowed out her mind’s cavity and yelled, Sakura didn’t know how she could continue to go about her duties. She had to be in the same room as he was, bring him food, cool down his body, and talk with him. To change her behavior now would be unusual, inexplicable, and unfair to him. Sakura could be professional about this. She could put aside the sudden awareness she had developed for Shino and see this as just another portion of the mission.

Right.

And Tsunade’s pig could fly.

The fifth day was such torture that she was absolutely certain that Shino belonged on an interrogation team and hadn’t told her. The rains were pelting down too hard for much to be done outside, so that meant more time spent indoors with her favorite Aburame. She thought that it would be helpful to ask him questions, since she had spilled out so much information about herself the day before. Sakura even wondered if maybe she would lose her attraction to him if she could know more, but then a negative personality had never shaken her in the past.

“So what’s your family like, then? You don’t hear much about the Aburame clan, really.” She was sewing up a hole in one of her shirts. Mending was one of her least favorite activities, but Tsunade insisted that she get good at it because even if she ran out of chakra on the field of battle then she could still make use of herself by sewing up wounds and attending to people with more traditional medicine.

Shino didn’t speak for so long that at first she thought he wasn’t going to say anything, but slowly she had come to decision that this was just his way. He wasn’t slow, merely the type to consider a response rather than blurt it out.

“We’re a small family. Few people want to marry into our clan when they know more about us.”

“Then you must have a lot of brothers and sisters, eh? I always wanted a little brother or sister.” She tried to find a positive, since Shino’s eyes had become lidded with something like sadness when he had mentioned the size of his clan.

Shino shook his head. “We are all trained from a young age to be ninja. There are few left over for child raising, and even fewer civilians who are willing to take an Aburame child into their care.”

“That’s a very serious burden for your family, and for you too. A lot of expectation. . . I’m glad I’m a first generation ninja in my own family.”

“No burden, it’s an honor. I’m proud of my clan, no matter what other people say about us behind our backs. You acclimate to the life you’re given.”

Sakura smiled at him. “There’s no reason why the next generation should be small. I bet you’ll do your family proud. . .erm. . .” She realized what she was saying too late. Did this count as hitting on him? That twisting feeling in her gut as well as the screaming voice in her mind told her ‘yes’.

His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

*  
*  
*

How long could a ninja stay sick? Was he dying of something? Was she incompetent? It had to be one of the two because a ninja, a person who was healthier than most athletes, should not have been laid out this long by getting a little wet and cold for a few days.

“I think I should contact a professional.” Sakura bit her lip and told him honestly. “If I can’t help you, then it must be some disease I haven’t studied yet. But I memorized hundreds upon hundreds of them and all their symptoms and you don’t seem to have anything but a high fever! I’m so sorry, Shino, I failed you. . .”

He shook his head, denying it, but she wouldn’t accept any comfort.

“It’s true, I’m too inexperienced. Tsunade’s right, I have so much to learn.” She felt disheartened. Such a simple problem, and she couldn’t fix it.

“I’m not sick.”

After days and days, Shino could very well die from dehydration or suddenly get a secondary infection in his weakened state and. . . and. . . what?

“What did you say?” Her meandering self pity sharpened to a fine needle point of anger.

“I’m not sick. We can leave at any time.”

Heedless of any danger, she walked over to his prone form and stabbed a finger into his chest. “And how long have you been. . . ‘not sick’?” She hissed.

“After the second day.”

She sputtered, words failing her, as he calmly confessed this to her. “Wh. . . augh. . . hell!. . . WHY?”

“I liked being with you like this.” He was not sorry in the least. Calm, collected, and even curiously tilting his head a bit up at her face contorted with rage.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t break every bone in your body just so we have a real reason why the mission was delayed, Mr. ‘I’m a trained ninja from birth’.”

Shino tilted his head to the side and leaned forward to lock his lips with her own.

Sakura was sure she had suddenly come down with a fever of her own, since her body was certainly on fire down to her bare toes curling on the floor. His hand cradled the back of her head, twining in her hair and pushing her forward to grind her lips more firmly into his. Passive and in shock, she felt his mouth open and capture her bottom lip only to drag his tongue over her sensitive flesh.

Then the steady pressure was gone from the back of her head and his face was separated from his and all Sakura could think to do was sit down hard on the floor by his bed.

“Oh.” She said in a small voice. Her face twisted into a frown, and she dragged a hand through where he had touched her hair. It was strange, this feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she was more than a little ill at ease with it.

Shino, observant and oddly sensitive to his surroundings, came to his own conclusion. “That was inappropriate, I suppose. I apologize.”

She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, but her brain hadn’t caught up with her mouth yet. Rising from the floor, she began to pace while words flew.

“It isn’t that I dislike you. . . it’s. . .” What was she supposed to say now? It felt like an interrogation somehow. “You seemed to be so creepy. . .” She bit her lip, remembering the feeling of his tongue as it scraped across her sensitive skin. Shino’s eyes might have been heated, but there was no way his eyes could become any more black than they already were. Sakura was at a loss.

“I see.” The chill in his words made Sakura shiver involuntarily. “I troubled you. It won’t happen again.”

This wasn’t the way it should be. Why was she rejecting him so subtly when what she wanted was to give this a chance? It didn’t feel wrong, it didn’t particularly feel weird, she was simply unsure.

“Shino. . .”

“Please, if you are uncomfortable then you do not have to feel obligated to stay here.” Shino’s voice rose slightly, carrying an inflection of irritation.

“No.” _Now or never, now or never._ Her inner voice cheered, trying to get her to take the unsteady step towards what he offered. “I said ‘seemed’, past tense, and now I think that you’re. . . analytical.” Again she sat on the bed, poised to run should his attitude remain frigid.

The way his attention snapped to her face again made her cast her eyes to the floor. “I fail to see how that is better, in this situation.” Shino smoothed his hand over her hair, then through it, getting caught in a tangle but then extruding himself gently. The motion was sensuous, comforting. “Unless you wish to be analyzed.”

“Give it a try. I’ll tell you what I think afterwards.” Sakura’s inner voice gave a squeal of anticipation.

“Remember that you asked for it.” He sat up more completely, pushing up the sleeves of his shirt to expose hard muscled forearms dusted lightly with jet hair. The contrast against his pale skin was sharp, and Sakura tried not to let herself get lost in details as a defense against the strangeness of the situation.

She would remember all right. She would remember everything about this rainy day, from the feel of the clean sheets as she bunched them in her hands to the goosebumps that he was raising on her flesh as his fingertips brushed over the skin at her wrists and moved up her bare arm to slide along her neck and collarbone.

Now that he had permission, Shino took his time to ‘analyze’ Sakura. He batted away her hands when she tried to touch him, and instead gloried in being able to touch her without impediment. Well, discounting the clothes, and he was ready enough to get those out of the way. The zipper down the front of her shirt was easy, exposing the mesh shirt and bra beneath. With her cooperation, she was down to the bra in no time, and still all he did was touch her.

The room was cold and humid, and her nipples pebbled in response even before he caressed them gently, cautiously, waiting for her to cry halt to his examination of her body. _What a way to play doctor. . ._ her inner voice said as Sakura tried to keep from shivering.

Naturally, he noticed her discomfort, and lifted a corner of the blanket up.

“Care to join me?”

Not too long ago she would have been horrified at the prospect of being pressed up against the Aburame, but now she didn’t want anything more. Hm, that wasn’t quite true, since there were a couple things she wanted more of at the moment. She looked into his face, which betrayed not even a smirk, showing how seriously—how reverently—he was regarding this opportunity to be with her. Sakura smiled reassuringly and undid the buttons on his pajamas, remembering how she had dressed him that first night looking at as little as possible and concentrating on reciting medicinal formulas to take her mind of things. Now she wanted to drink the sight of him in, and he tensely watched her.

Sakura bent down, planting a firm kiss on his taut stomach muscles. They jumped and Shino grunted softly. She laughed and laid her body over his before drawing the covers over their waists. From her new vantage point, straddling his hips, she knew that Shino was enjoying their time together quite a lot. She wiggled over him slightly and he grunted again, blinking slowly and looking into her mischievously smiling face.

“You’re still warm.” Chests pressed together, their faces were only a few inches apart.

“I thought you’d appreciate it.”

He closed the distance between them again and those heavenly lips of his went to work again. There was no reason to hold still this time and her hands wandered over his sides until he rolled them over and Sakura had access to his back. She ran her blunt nails down from the shoulder blades to the base of his spine and Shino detached his mouth from her neck long enough to give a hiss of pleasure. Encouraged, she did it again, and he arched into her touch, pressing his erection into her tightly. The friction against her core created a faint feeling of pleasure and she pressed forward to feel it again, only to grind against her clothes almost painfully.

Shino sat back on his knees, watching her with great interest as she tore off her skirt and hidden weapons, leaving only her underwear as a barrier, and a flimsy one at that, pale pink like her hair. She blushed under his scrutiny, unused to being so exposed to anyone.

“So?” She crossed her arms over her chest, slightly petulant that he wasn’t making any move to start things up again.

The way the smile spread on his face was languid, sexy, and Sakura’s heart sped up at the sight of it. Shino pushed her bra up, exposing one of the small mounds of flesh. He ran his finger on the underside, never breaking eye contact with a Sakura who was shaking from something entirely unrelated to the cold. The way his long fingers massaged her chest made her bite her lip and when his hands moved lower she almost drew blood to keep from crying out. He paused at the elastic of her panties, but she pushed his hand lower, and felt his breathing catch when he encountered her moist lips.

The Aburame’s supreme confidence faltered in this new territory, and, too aroused to be embarrassed, Sakura showed him what she liked, what she wanted. He took to it fast enough, using those dexterous fingers to stroke and rub her where she needed it most. Sakura’s eyes fluttered, hands clutching the sheets again to keep from grabbing him, and hips thrusting forward slightly in time to the rhythm he had established. Shino’s patience and fast learning curve were rewarded when Sakura began to cry out and convulse over his fingers, and when her body had settled and she looked to him in unfocused post orgasmic bliss, he gave her a soft kiss and laid at her side, one hand absently molding her exposed breast in his palm.

“Still think I’m analytical?” He asked, though she wasn’t sure if that was an attempt at dry humor or if he really wanted to know. Shino having a sense of humor didn’t compute, so she took his question seriously, endorphins making her brain’s functions cloudy. 

“Hmm.” She said noncommittally, and in shifting her body became aware that his body was still straining, desiring release. He didn’t look like he was in pain, but a ninja would be able to ignore something so small. Running her hand over it through his pajama bottoms she revised the comment in her head. . . It’s not small.

Shino watched her, eyes wide, as she slid one hand into his pants to stroke the smooth column of flesh that demanded attention with a twitch at her tentative touches. At first she didn’t think she was getting anywhere, or that the sweat that they were both covered in wasn’t enough lubrication, but when Shino closed his eyes and gave the most shockingly ragged groan she knew she had him. It didn’t take long, with the state he was in, and when he came he clutched her body to him suddenly until his shudders subsided.

Hand down his pants still, blushing and sated, Sakura managed to get out. “No, I don’t just think you’re analytical.”

At first she wasn’t sure what was happening when the bed began to shake, but then she realized he was laughing. Chuckles low in his belly sometimes escaped in breathy bursts, and continued sporadically as they cleaned themselves up a little, changed clothes, and crawled back into bed to enjoy touching one another some more. The initial urgency of their need had been met, and there might be more later, but it was enough for the moment.

“It wasn’t right for me to lie to you.” Sakura felt her bare foot brush his shin and thought about how tall he was, and how warm and comforting this contact was as well. She yawned as he continued to stare at her. It was still a little off putting, but less so at the moment. Later on she might feel less charitable about that.

“What should I do about it?”

Shino shrugged and pulled her body in closer. The sound of the rain filled the room, silent but for their breathing. 

_Doesn’t work well with others. . ._ Sakura thought to herself, with the ghost of a smirk on her lips.


End file.
